Mar. 31 - Tilloo Cay

Tilloo Cut South - Anchorage

“The ocean stirs the heart, inspires the imagination and brings eternal joy to the soul.” —Wyland

We spent the morning exploring Little Harbour…from the old lighthouse on the east side to Bookies Beach on the south west side. If you want a beautiful paradise setting with only a few people around this is the place to come.

Around lunch we returned to the boat and moved about five miles to Sandy Cay where we snorkeled. This area is a Land & Sea Park and has an amazing coral reef. I was really impressed with the coral, but the fish were lacking today. Everyone has told us about the eagle rays they’ve seen here, but we didn’t spot any this afternoon. We had a beautiful day and I will let my pictures show you what we saw…enjoy.

The Pearl in Little Harbour

Part of the ruins of the old lighthouse keepers home

A view of Bookies Beach from the old lighthouse

Bookies Beach

Part of the sea glass we've found the last few days

Coming out of Little Harbour

That bright turquoise area is a large sand bank

Looking towards our anchorage for the night

Out exploring in the dinghy

Here are a few pictures taken through our look bucket...not too bad. 

Bookies Beach near Little Harbour

Mar. 30 – Little Harbour, Great Abaco Island

Pete’s Pub Mooring

“The ocean makes me feel really small and it makes me put my whole life into perspective… it humbles you and makes you feel almost like you’ve been baptized. I feel born again when I get out of the ocean.” —Beyoncé Knowles

We returned to a few of the small beaches this morning during low tide to do more beach combing. Stan found a new record holding sea biscuit and we also found more sea glass on our special beach. Our anchorage was beginning to fill up so after lunch we decided to head over to Little Harbour.

Little Harbour is a picturesque and well-protected harbor with an almost perfect semicircle white beach on the east side and high cliffs on the west side. The shore is lined in palm trees and is exactly what you’d picture in your mind if you think of an island paradise. The only businesses in Little Harbour are Pete’s Pub and Peter Johnston Gallery, Studio and Foundry. Pete's Pub is a very laid-back island pub that was fashioned out of the pilothouse and deckhouse of the sailing ship "Langosta", one of the Johnston family's original live-aboards.

We picked up a mooring ball and then went ashore to explore. We sat and enjoyed one of Pete’s Pub’s special rum concoctions before exploring the beach on the north side. It’s a very rugged beach and we could hear the breaking waves from the boat this evening. We also wandered through the gallery. I really wanted to get here last Saturday for an art show they had, but the weather and wind didn’t cooperate. Little Harbour is a cute, quiet, relaxing place…a deserted island that makes you feel like you’re a million miles from the real world.

Our view this morning on Lynyard Cay

Lynyard Cay 

Looking towards Pete's Pub from The Pearl 

Pete's Pub 

Pete Johnston's Gallery & Foundry 

The beach on the north shore of Little Harbour 

A make shift shack on the beach

Cliffs around the harbor 

The entrance to Little Harbour 

An aerial view of the harbor 

Mar. 29 - Lynyard Cay

North Lynyard Cay anchorage

"Keep your sense of proportion by regularly, preferably daily, visiting the natural world." —Catlin Matthews

The wind was still blowing when we got up, so we had a slow morning enjoying breakfast and surfing the Internet. Around 10:00 we both decided the wind had laid enough for us to move on...we were both getting a little tired of just hanging around on the boat. So we dropped the mooring and headed south to Lynyard Cay. Lynyard Cay is a private island with a few homes, but all the beaches in Abaco are public and it’s said to be a great place to look for shells and sea glass.

The water in our anchorage is unbelievably clear...even with the wind blowing some. We dropped the hook and then took the dinghy down so we could explore the small beaches. We found more sea biscuits, larger than any we've seen before. I thought I'd collected enough of them, but we had to keep these just for their size. We also found some very unusual sponges on the first beach and a few urchins. Our best find of the day was beautiful polished sea glass and lots of it. We discovered Abaco's glass beach. Well maybe not a real glass beach, but better than anything else we’ve seen. It was everywhere and each wave seemed to bring in more. It's the best sea glass we've seen since we were in Maine.

Getting back to The Pearl was a rough ride since the wind had picked up again. We were both soaked by the time we got back, but it was still fun to get out and do something today. Our anchorage is beautiful and it looked even more spectacular with the large moon reflecting off the gorgeous clear water.

Our anchorage

Our view on the way back to the boat

Some of our earlier sponges...airing out

A close up of one of our sea biscuits

The sea biscuit on the bottom left was our largest until today...the largest now is 6"x4". Believe me that is pretty big!

Silent Sunday

Abaco Picket Fences

We’re sitting in Man-O-War waiting on what we hope is the last winter storm to pass through the Abacos. The wind howled all day, but we did have a chance to go ashore for a while and walk on the beach before the threat of rain chased us back to the boat. Weather like this forces us to relax and unwind, but it also makes blogging a little more difficult. So today I thought I’d share part of an article that I read in the Abaco Life magazine.

“Good fences make good neighbors,” wrote Robert Frost in his famous poem “Mending Wall.” In Abaco, nothing is more American about the island village scenery - or more neighborly - than white fences.

Wall fences were, and still are, the most common property definition used in the British Isles, especially in rural areas. The idea of picket fences in the American colonies, particularly in New England and New York, was inspired by pointed iron fences in Europe, which symbolized the affluent status of the home owner. But metal was expensive in the New World, and wood was abundant, so picket fences were born. The same laws of supply and demand existed in Abaco when American loyalists began arriving in 1783 to build settlements, the majority of the fences were built from local cedar and pine.

Picket fences make a bold and sturdy statement, and while they may serve at times to keep out the neighbor’s dog, their main purpose in Abaco is beautification. The standard height of four to five feet actually invites socializing rather than discourage it.  

The best examples of these fences today are in the settlements of New Plymouth on Green Turtle Cay and in Hope Town on Elbow Cay. But wherever they are found, construction and care still add to the home owners’ status in the community, just as his garden does. Sometimes, a white picket fence blends regally with a flowing and fiery bougainvillea, and different styles can express individual tastes for simplicity or ornateness.