April 21, 2009: Powell Cay

I slept better than I expected last night with all the undulations of the boat in the waves. As I closed my eyes, I remembered being 6 years old and opening the teak door of the bow locker of my Daddy’s 16 foot wooden ski boat and crawling in. There was a cozy space in the V-shape where I could make a nest in the life jackets and slept through a lot of rocking.

After breakfast we got ready to pull anchor watching a huge dark thunder cloud moving towards the island from the ocean side. We decided to wait a bit before moving on, and sure enough the wind picked up and we had a tropical squall pass over us including multiple lightning bolts to the water , booming thunder and a deluge of rain. It was great to still be at anchor during the storm and the rain seemed to calm the water... like the calm after the storm and washed some of the salt off the boat. After about 45 minutes, it cleared up and we headed out, cruising the Abaco Sea just inside their tiny barrier islands. It was grey and overcast, and the sky and the sea were one as we passed the Sale Rocks. Our course was along the east side of the Great Abaco Island.

Our destination today was Powell Cay where we passed stone outcroppings before anchoring near the narrow beach. After eating a late lunch, we decided to take the dinghy ashore to explore the uninhabited island. We saw a sunken barge with an old rusty crane protruding from the 6 feet deep clear water. We took the dinghy to the north shore that faced out to the Atlantic and pulled it up on the beach. It was fun to make footprints in the pink sand where there were no others. We walked along the soft sand to where there were old coral/rock banks where the waves washed over them as the tide came in. We saw hermit crabs in the water’s edge and found some amazing sea shells, sea biscuits and sea urchins. The trees along the beach were twisted and weathered having survived the ocean wind and hurricanes.

Around 4:00 with the tide rising, we headed back to the dinghy to discover it was filling with water with waves breaking into the stern as it was beached. Fortunately Tom had a bailer and we pulled the anchor from the sand to push off. With the breakers coming in sloshing over us, we were fighting to turn the boat around – bow out – and still have enough water to crank the outboard. Standing in 3 feet of water, we saw a large triangular fin just off the rocks about 20 yards out from us. Gauging from where the tail flipped the water, we guessed that the shark was about 12 feet long. I have never seen a shark in the surf before, but I can tell you that it added an imperative to getting in the dinghy with it cranked and on our way.

There was more excitement coming. As we neared the boat to bring the dinghy up into its cradle I had caught hold of the swim platform just as Tom’s hand slipped on the throttle jamming the dinghy hard into the platform just as a wave lifted the stern of the big boat allowing the casing of the outboard on the small boat to be caught under the swim platform. Yikes! It took recranking the engine and some watching of the wave patterns on the big boat to separate the two without falling in and finally get back on board the big boat. It was quite an interesting afternoon.

Another great Bahamian discovery today was the Spanish Cay Radio Station, FM 102.4 and the only station on the dial. While reading this afternoon we listened to a combination of Reggae and Country songs – lots about being poor, how to get rich quick or passing the time away on my boat in the sea, with words local to the Abaco Islands. There was one little ditty with the words: “if you ain’t been aground, you ain’t been around”. Some of the music sang with steel drum music accompaniment. One song we heard we recognized was “Yellow Bird” which we remembered from our honeymoon on Jamaica 36 years ago. There was an occasional jive number thrown in for diversity – all commercial free.

After dinner, we took our coffee to the bow of the boat to watch the glowing sun set across the sea behind Great Abaco Island. After dark we spotted constellations in the dark sky with the Big Dipper overhead and Orion low in the western sky behind the tiny lights of Coopertown.

No internet signals here... : )