March 16th- Marsh Harbour to Tahiti Beach, Abaco Islands Bahamas

Captain and crew are living on “Island Time” which causes me to get behind on this blog.

We spent a few days in Marsh Harbour. The Abaco weather has changed a bit to a more winter pattern for the area. The definition of Winter in the Bahamas is much different than New England winter. We’ve had a few nights in the 60s F. Not quite as hot during the day. More wind has been present. We’ve had some storms blow through.

While in Marsh Harbour we had two squalls. I rigged our second anchor just in case we dragged. During the second squall we saw a boat dragging, out of control, toward docks and shallow water. All the boats were pointed to the southwest. When the squall hit all boats did a quick 180 degree turn and pointed towards the northeast. The crew were onboard but must have been sleeping. I repeatedly blew our loud airhorn to no effect. At about the time I was starting to jump in the dinghy, the boat right next to us started to drag it’s anchor. The wind was howling through the rigging. By this point I was more worried about Evergreen so decided to stay on the boat (the Admiral strongly suggested the same). Another good samaritan dinghyed out to the first boat and woke them up. Efforts were made to get the boat stopped and back in deeper water. Our dragging neighbor was also able to reanchor his vessel.

Every time I see this kind of thing it reinforces my opinion that a big, heavy, anchor and lots of chain is worth the extra effort. We also back down heavily on our gear after dropping the anchor. Sometimes I rip it out of the seabed and have to reanchor again. When the anchor is set, it’s SET (for now).

Marsh Harbour has a great grocery store (Maxwell’s) so while there we stocked up on food. We went to a liquor store (Packy) also. Beer was really expensive but rum wasn’t, so we got a bottle to offset our dwindling beer supply. When in Rome….

Some scenes from Marsh Harbour. Wally’s Restaurant is open. Looks nice. Might go for a special dinner next time.After the squall.We were ready to move on by Thursday but didn’t have a concrete plan. That seems to be a theme lately. Man O War is close but I wasn’t sure if the wind was going to switch over night. A problem if we were anchored out.

We broke out our anchor, and found a nice breeze blowing in the Sea of Abaco. There are a lot more opportunities to sail out here than the usual ICW stuff we are doing. We decided on Elbow Cay and tacked our way into the south breeze.

Hope Town has a nice harbor but all the moorings were full and there is no room to anchor. We moved on a little further to Tahiti Beach which is on the southern tip of Elbow Cay.

The anchorage at Tahiti Beach is pretty well protected with Elbow on one side, Lubbers Quarter on the other, and various shoals blocking the wave action. There is even a Tiki boat that shows up during the day to serve drinks to the folks on the beach. Ollie loves the beach and seems to anticipate the amount of fun he is going to have as soon as he sees one.

Some scenes from Tahiti Beach and the community near by.Evergreen anchored at Tahiti Beach.

We have some friends (SV Rhiannon) on a mooring in Hope Town. We got in touch with them to see if any moorings had opened up. Turns out, they are going to Marsh Harbour for a few days and we can use their mooring until they return. They’ll be leaving around high tide tomorrow and we’ll check out Hope Town for a few days.