Touring the Abacos

Five miles after leaving our overnight anchorage in Royal Island, we turned north toward the Abacos. We had a great sail for the remaining 49.30 miles to first destination, Little Harbour. We really enjoy sailing with Doug and Marlene on Solar Eclipse. It’s their first trip to the Bahamas too, so all of us are always excited to see new places. Even on long sails such as this one, we drop anchor within about 15 minutes of each other. From Halifax, Nova Scotia, they are seasoned sailors who raced competitively for many years. They always have great sail trim on their 38-foot Island Packet. There are as many Canadians as Americans cruising the Bahamas and most those we have met have a racing background.

We had been told that the anchorages on the beaches around Little Harbour are beautiful and that Pete’s Pub is not to be missed. All of the is true, but we discovered much more.

Randolph Johnston was an assistant professor at Smith College in Massachusetts. In 1950, he resigned his position; he and his family began the search for their own island on which they would carve both a home and a sculptor’s workshop. They sold their home, stored their art, drove to Florida, flew to Nassau and took the mail boat to Man-O-War Cay, known for building quality boats. Here, they had their schooner Langosta built. After much sailing in the Bahamas, looking for their personal island, they discovered Little Harbour, only a few miles south of Man-O-War cay.

While at the Gallery on Little Harbour, we purchased one of the four dusty, yellowing Artist on His Island, which was printed in 1975, and includes many entries from Professor Johnston’s original diary as well as a number of the artist’s drawings. The excerpts are beautifully written and highlight adventures, misadventures, trials, and triumphs. In the art world, Randolph Johnston is considered one of the great sculptors of the twentieth century. But this family’s amazing life on the island remains relatively unknown.

While other families do now also live on the island, much of Little Harbour remains in the hands of Professor Johnston’s three sons, but only Pete maintains a relatively high profile with a gallery devoted to his father’s work, his work, and the work of other local artists, and Pete’s Pub, a shack bar on the beach that turns out really good pub grub and is a fun place.
For more info, vist www.petespubandgallery.com

After leaving our lovely anchorage, we sailed out of Little Harbour with Marsh Harbour as our next stop. We could have stayed in the shallow bank side, known in this area as the Sea of Abaco. We chose to go out the cut and sail on the ocean side; the route was straight and more direct. From Marsh Harbour we planned to make short sails to other cays and their unique settlements.

Marsh Harbour is the “big city” of the Abacos. The harbor is spacious and secure and the town offers many facilities for boaters. We saw cruisers at anchorage that we’ve met along the way, plus we were able to catch up with many of them at the local Happy Hours.

One day when the wind was light and the Sea of Abaco pretty calm, we decided to take a dingy trip to Man-O-Was Cay to visit some friends of Doug and Marlene’s and tour the island. We didn’t see the anchorage as we thought we would, so we pulled into the marina and went ashore. We quickly discovered we had motored to Great Guana Cay, not to our planned stop. Unless there is a landmark, such as a Batelco tower, the cays in this area look similar, and we had just not headed east enough when we left Marsh Harbour. We had a good laugh and thirty minutes later, we were meeting Tuck and Kathy on Mariah and Jake and Amy on Gypsy’s Song. After a beer and another chuckle about our dingy travels, we all went into town for lunch and to walk around this community of Loyalist descendants, known for their shipbuilding. Today their heritage of Abaco runabouts is seen in the United States as well as the Bahamas (the ferry boats). Our five-mile trip back to Marsh Harbour was rough, but, thankfully, the shortest trip of the day.

In the Abacos, everyone stops by Marsh Harbour, but after catching up with other cruisers, boat maintenance, and provisioning, most of us are ready for a quieter anchorage. We tied up to the docks of Marsh Harbour Marina for fuel and water, and then sailed to our next anchorage, a beautiful beach on Elbow Cay, just outside the harbor entrance to Hope Town.

While Marsh Harbour is the hub of the Abacos, Hope Town is the jewel. The main businesses can be found around the waterfront of this well-protected harbor. Originally designed for pedestrians and their carts and wagons, narrow concrete paths are set between New England style cottages that are painted every color and every color combination: pinks, greens, turquoise, salmon, yellows, blues, gray, and white and decorated with gingerbread or filigree work. The small town is quiet, clean, charming, and quaint.

Hope Town and cruisers anchored just outside the town are watched over by the still-functioning red-and-white striped lighthouse. We climbed the winding steps of this 120-ft.
beacon to get an inside view of the hand-wound kerosene light and the magnificent prisms and also to take in the amazing 360-degree view. A keeper lives on site to nightly light the only manned lighthouse remaining in the Bahamas.


For Mother’s Day, Larry treated me to a special brunch at Harbours Edge. Sitting on the ocean-side waterfront veranda, listening to live music, watching the water splash across the reef, enjoying delicious food and unlimited bubbly --- lovely! Then, back on the boat, I took a little nap. Later that evening, Doug and Marlene came over with a beautifully grilled pork loin. I opened a bottle of bubbly, and we toasted the spirit of Mother’s Day and enjoyed a great dinner and planned our next anchorage.