Need help with route planning - Abacos

[TitanTn]

Thanks for all of the input. I think I am on a good track for a plan, but I'm likely going to have plan A, B, C, etc.

I'm definitely checking in at West End just due to being cautious with fuel. I now understand that there's fuel at Grand Cays and so I can easily do the upper, out islands (I'll be calling next spring to make sure they're still pumping).

The trip will be somewhere between 7-10 days, so if anyone has some places that I shouldn't miss as I come down from Grand Cays - let me know. I'll likely only go down as far as Guana Cay / Treasure Cay. I'll have to do the rest on the next trip.

[skipgundlach]

Wow.

Where to start, even.

There's so much exploration to do that you could spend weeks without transiting the whale, and, depending on the season, have great fishing.

With your draft, there isn't very much you can't get to, and in May, it will be warm enough to stay on the surface snorkeling until you're burned to a crisp.

On which subject, a skin (vs wetsuit) will keep you warm and avoid any unfortunate brushes with flora or fauna you'd remember after the fact. If you're talented with a snorkel, you probably already know about slight weighting to keep you barely buoyant at the surface, making it easy to stay down as your lungs compress.

Stop at Foxtown on the way over or back and get to know the locals.

Stop at Great Sale, tuck up in the anchorage if it's blowy (or just to make a shorter dinghy ride), go to the remains of the dock on the SE edge of that finger, and walk the remains of the road to the ruins on the other side.

You COULD anchor in the harbor at Grand (well, Little) but there's a nice anchorage in Grand, with great fishing all around that area, and a nice walk, if you're into that. As to LGC, you can walk the town in a hour or so, and chat up the locals at "The Decision Tree" about halfway to the post office on the north; stop into the bar at the foot of the hill there for $2 beer and $1 coke, the best deal in the Bahamas.

Explore Moraine on the way down; great fishing (conch, lobster, etc.) there due to very small traffic.

Tuck into the anchorage at AllensPensacola, take the trail to the Atlantic side, and bring a sign to hang on the Sign Tree to mark your visit before you explore the beach.

Visit Nunjack/Manjack starting at the cove at the top (you are shallow enough to anchor there if you want) and play (literally) with the stingrays and enjoy the nurse and sand sharks cruising further out waiting for a handout (which is why the stingrays are so socialized; they are very much like cats, enjoying scritches between the eyes, giving you head bumps and leg brushes with their wings, enjoying being massaged on their forward portion of the wings, and the like). Then cruise on down to what looks like a resort, but is merely Bill and Leslie's front yard. Anchor and walk the beach, and explore the very long walk to the Atlantic side. If you encounter B/L, they'll likely chat you up and may even favor you with a tour of their development; they're entirely self sufficient there. When you finish, tuck into the bottom of the island and cruise, slowly, up the mangroves for LOTS of turtles and to see a great place to tie off in a hurricane if you needed to.

Powell has TWO trails to the Atlantic worth exploring as well as walking either inside beach. We use the sand bar there to intentionally ground our boat to scrub the bottom from mid-low-falling to mid-high-rising...

Pop across the sound and explore Cooperstown, where you could also fuel; there's a nice new library there, and you MIGHT enounter Everett Bootle, descendant of the first resident in the area after whom the highway which runs all the way to the end, SCBootle...

I'm not at my Explorer charts so all this is from memory, but one of those islands has a "Hurricane Hole" marked at the bottom of the chart. It truly is, and you could use it if you had to, but it's a nice short exploration into it to look around. When you get out again, anchor nearby and snorkel/fish the entrance and out to the western side; it's great fishing and if in season lobstering there.

GTC has two sounds you can get into for protection if you need it, and has a town to explore and a couple of nice bars/eateries on the north side. The liquor store in town is also a small restaurant; go there for one of the better (and much less expensive) burgers in town; later wander down to the home of the Goombay Smash if you're into such drinks as you explore the rest of the town.

There's WAY more, but you'd have to read some of my logs (the Yahoo one in my sig block)...

L8R

Skip

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[TitanTn]

Wow Skip! That's exactly the type of feedback I was hoping to get, and those are the types of activities that we want to do. I will spend some time going through your logs to learn more. Thanks for taking the time to give us all of that insight.

[skipgundlach]

Originally Posted by TitanTn

Wow Skip! That's exactly the type of feedback I was hoping to get, and those are the types of activities that we want to do. I will spend some time going through your logs to learn more. Thanks for taking the time to give us all of that insight.

Glad to help.

Read the more current ones - say, in the last couple of years - for more depth on the Abacos. The earlier ones had us further south, mostly.

Skim through the Shake and Break last few and perhaps (don't recall and not at my Nav computer to look) Breakout series for the Abacos in more depth...

L8R

Skip