Northern Abaco and Back to USA

Northern Abaco

Its been 4 months now on the boat and we have seen some beautiful parts of the Bahamas, but at the same time we have been astounded at the amount of trash on the beaches - plastic, plastic, plastic! - everywhere and especially on the Atlantic beaches.  It is so so saddening.  Yes, we saw plastic on the beach in 2014, but not to this extent.  It has become a major issue and I don't know how it will get resolved.

But back to the bright side......our trip back to the US took us back to the Green Turtle Cay area, but this time we anchored at Manjack Cay and really enjoyed the time there.  Here once more, we sat out a modest "blow" but the area was pretty protected.  We stayed a couple of nights and took the walk across to the Atlantic side of the island.

Pensacola Cay

From Manjack, and after the blow, we sailed a short hop to Pensacola  and Allans Cay making a short stop at the almost deserted Spanish Cay for fuel.  Spanish Cay has a large marina - but not a boat in the harbour.  Charging $3/ft per night will do that!  Apparently, they make their money off the sport fishing boats later in the season.  So onwards we went to Pensacola and Allans Cay.  The

anchorage we chose was on the  bank side and I guess technically that is Allans Cay.  It was a nice protected anchorage and there were a few boats already here.  We had heard about a "signing tree" on the atlantic side, and had already recovered an abandoned life ring for use at the signing tree. 

What's a signing tree - I am glad you asked!  Simply a tree where you hand a sign with the name of your boat.  ideally you are creative and make the sign from driftwood or other items found locally.  I guess in a way, it may help contribute to cleaning up these beaches of some of the trash if you can use that......and that is what we did.  We had recovered an old life ring from a nearby beach. 

So we set off on a trek to find the signing tree.  The trail starts in the bank side of the island at a "structure" where some joker had placed a Walmart parking sign.  We followed the trail which was marked by plastic debris that had been decorated and hung in trees.  Well at least it had been put to some use!  Once on the other side, we found what must have been several generations of "signing trees", with signs dating back about 10 years.  Some boats had left signs on consecutive years recording multiple visits to the island.  I must admit it was pretty cool!  also pretty cool looking for boat names and people we had met along our way.  We found the perfect spot for our ring and Larry wend tree-climbing to get it in the spot.  one side decorated by Midnight Sun's artist - Janet; the other decorated by TraSea's art director, Tracy!

Midnight Sun II's side

TraSea's Side

Our side  has boat name, crew, and yacht clubs - Pensacola and Point of course!, and similar information on TraSea's side.  I wonder how long it will last?

From Pensacola Cay, we started the trip back to the US in earnest.  our next stop was a quick overnight at Great Sale Cay.  This is a good overnight stopping point when crossing the Little Bahama Bank, but there's not a lot there, the beach is small and not too interesting, so it was just a short stop.

From Great Sale, we moved on to the Marina at West End, named old Bahama Bay.  I had stopped here in 2014 on our first trip to the Bahamas.  This time, the marina was much busier and I believe they have added some nice houses and condos to provide accommodations for guests. 

It was our last night in the Bahamas as we planned to cross back to the US the next day, headed for West Palm Beach.  I must say, I was sad to leave.