The Abacos

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Written June 3, 2025, Visited April 30 – May 3, 2025

When we headed back to the Bahamas as opposed to Panama, we did not plan to visit the Abacos. I’d more thought we’d head up into the Bahamas, visit the central and southern islands and then cut across to Florida. We’d been to the Abacos and frankly they seemed a bit to Florida to us. However, our friends Mark and Christine on Grey Matter were in the Abacos and this would be the last chance to visit with them before they headed across the pond to Bermuda, then the Azores and on to Scotland. They tried to convince us to join them on Rincon, but we were not emotionally ready, nor was Rincon quite ready for that voyage. So, we headed north as opposed to west from Spanish Wells.

Heading in Little Harbour Cut into the Sea of Abaco. A bit disconcerting with waves breaking on the reef. Thus were we were the water was quite deep.

Visiting with Friends

Our primary goal was to sync with Mark and Christine. Christine had just returned for China with her parents so they could spend a few weeks together before mark and Christine head to Europe. It was hard to engage with The Parents as they don’t speak English. At one point Christine’s Mom mentioned to her that she did not realize Mark was so talkative. Mark does not speak Chinese and thus when we arrived he had someone to talk with while Christine entertained her parents. Funny.

We caught up with Mark and Christine and her Mom at the lighthouse in Hopetown. We were on our way up, they headed back down. Dad was outside taking drone shots.

Kite Surfing

Mark and Christine and avid divers and kite boarders. When Christine is not working, she is doing one of the two. The day we arrived, Christine and her Mom were driving. The next when we sync’ed, it was kite boarding.

Mark and Christine were getting the kite ready. It was windy…. good for kite boarding.
The winds were a pretty steady speed which makes it much easier. The lines connecting the kite to the body harness are quite small. They just look like fishing line to me. And the viens on the kite are air filled which keeps it light but sturdy.
Christine did most of the surfing, but Mark took a turn as well.

The Drones

Christine’s Dad spends his time with a drone. He apparently brought 3 with him from China. He is very skilled. Whether it is Christine and Mark kite boarding, or getting some video of Rincon Feliz, he was using one of the drones every time we saw him. So nice of him to get some video of Rincon. I actually have 8 different videos!

This might be my favorite video of all of the Rincon drone work. I love how it shows the island around us and how lonely it can seem when at anchor in a big vast sea.

Fires

While we were in the Abacos, Grand Bahama island had multiple fires burning. There had been no rain for months and everything was extremely dry. I am used to forest fires where we live in New Mexico, far from the ocean, but it was so strange to see them burning right by the ocean with so much water. The Bahamas has limited capabilities to manage these sort of fires, so unless it is someones home or business, they just burn. Some of these fires were burning in a area Jim and I had dinghied through and bird watched back in 2023. Hopefully these forest will come back when the rains come.

Looking across the sound from our anchorage to the fires in Grand Bahama
The fires are always rather eerie at night.
They also produce some beautiful shots though
These fires were much farther west on the island. We saw these up close and near a couple small settlements as we were heading towards Florida. A mail boat passing by headed for Marsh Harbour.

The Rest of the Abacos

As well as visiting with Mark and Christine, we finally caught up with some Krogen friends (our brand of boat) Jeff and Ellen, whom we’d been following for a couple months through the Bahamas. We always seemed to be a few days behind them. Perhaps our favorite eating spot in the Abacos was our meeting spot.

Ah, a couple of old fashions while enjoying the pretty water.
As we were headed back to the dinghy, I looked in the water and thought there was some pretty turquoise art work. See the turquoise? Turns out it was a octopus about a foot across. It is not common to see them during the day and in such shallow water. As he moved along, he quickly changed colors to match the rocks. So very cool to see this guy!

We also stopped by Vernon’s Store. We’d met Vernon in 2023 and discovered he knew our friend Meredith’s Aunt Myrtle who had lived (and is buried in Hopetown). Frankly, we were a little surprised he was still with us, but he seemed to be going strong. His store always had interesting little signs posted.

Vernon has multiple changing signs around his little store to keep us entertained.
We also very briefly saw Gray Matter again in Marsh Harbour. We were headed out for our trip to the US and they had come in to drop “The Parents” at the airport for a flight to the US, then back to China after visiting friend for a few days.

Beyond that, we jumped from Cay to Cay working our way west through the Abaco chain to cross back into the US. Yes, we made it and had a pretty smooth journey except that the gulf stream current was so strong our autopilot could not keep us on track. We’ve never had that problem before. Something to look into.

A final view of Grand Bahama before a late afternoon anchor and dinner at Great Sale Cay and a midnight start of the crossing to get to Fort Pierce at slack tide mid-day. Very important for that marina as the current can rips through the marina.

We are now in the Chesapeake and I’ll write a post of the highlights up the coast soon…