Windwalker Voyages

Bahamas 2013


2013 Abacos Trip

After a few years of mostly land-based activities, it was time to ease back into cruising a little, and a month in the Abacos seemed like a good way to test out our recent repairs and upgrades. From our base in the Palm Beach area, West End is only a short 50 mile hop across the gulf stream (weather permitting), but for some reason we haven't made the trip in 10 years. As you can see in the following chart, from West End we followed the Indian Cay channel to Mangrove Cay and Great Sale Cay, thence to Allan's-Pensacola where we planned to stay a few days. Need for a new generator charging battery altered that plan though and we made the trip through the Whale to Marsh Harbor the next day, staying in the area south of the Whale and north of Little Harbor for a couple of weeks.
Although we have been there many times before, this trip was unique in that the weather conditions (including days of west winds), let us visit some anchorages like Cormorant Cay and Buckaroon Bay that were new to us. Old favorites like Powell Cay, Allans-Pensacola, and Manjack Cay were as great as we remember them, but significant development has altered the experience at once-idylic places like Baker's Bay. The Abacos appear to be thriving, with many more houses on the shoreline and lots of cars in Marsh Harbor. Cruising traffic for May seemed light though, and most of the boats moving around seemed to be Sunsail and Moorings charters - mostly catamarans. Please follow the links in the box at upper right for our photo albums, daily logs and itinerary.