[Week four is here]

Saturday April 29th – Monday May 1st – Green Turtle Club

There was a serious blow forecasted to start Sunday with winds over 40 knots so we booked into Green Turtle Club Marina for three days until it blew over.

The wind arrived earlier than forecasted and we backed into the slip in a decent blow. Frisco jumped on board and handled all the lines. As the day wore on the marina filled up with boats avoiding the wind. Boaters on the docks answered cries for help as just about everyone had a challenging time getting into the slips. The dock hands were terrific and no damage to boats or humans occurred! The mooring field in White Sound was full and some boats were swinging wildly in the wind.

Saturday evening we walked over to the bar, planning to eat there. However the tables are not really conducive to eating so we asked if that had a table on the patio. They did not, so we ate in the inside restaurant. The food was excellent.

During the weekend Sian explored different parts of Green Turtle within walking distance of the marina and eventually found Coco Bay beach while walking Bella. While not worrisome in itself, when she got back to the boat she started looking at real estate for sale in that area. Hmmmmmm!

On Monday we rented a golf cart and explored more of the island, going into New Plymouth for breakfast and visiting a few beaches, including Coco Bay again!

We took the golf cart over for a look at Bluff House and booked a table for dinner later that evening. We had a very nice dinner on their patio by the marina.

There were a number of sportsfishers in the marina and we happily chatted to all of them. Darryl, who ran the sportsfisher that was in the slip next to us, came over and gave us some Strawberry Grouper that they had caught. Enough for two meals!

Tuesday May 2nd – Great Abaco Island beach

The wind finally slacked off. Since it was still from the south we headed off to the beach across from Manjack on Great Abaco Island for the afternoon and night. We had been to this beach a number of times, including once on this trip. It isn’t usually the most scenic location but with the protection from southerly winds, the good holding, and the long sandy, easily accessible beach it made a great place to relax. This year the beach is interesting in that Dorian had rendered it pretty wild with layers of tress ripped up or stripped of their foliage, plus the flotsam and jetsam washed up makes for interesting walks.

Wednesday May 3rd – Allans Pensacola

This was the most disappointing day of our trip so far. We had really wanted to visit Allans Pensacola on this trip. The winds were from the north west blowing at over 20 knots making the north anchorage less feasible, there is in a large anchorage on the east side of the cay which looked like it would work well in these winds. We put down the anchor and waited for a couple of hours to see if the side-on surge we were getting off the ocean would subside. It did not and was rolling Sonas and the other boats in the anchorage substantially. We decided to leave and go to the north anchorage to see if it was better after all. As we approached the anchorage it was clear that it would be pretty rough so we retraced our track and re-achored in the east anchorage. And indeed it was a miserable night with the boat rolling. However we were safe!

Thursday May 4th – Friday May 5th – Powell Cay

The wind had changed to the north east so we went to the north anchorage which was now protected. We were very disappointed in that, while very scenic, here were no beaches of any length. This may have been because it was high tide when we arrived. Photos we have seen of this anchorage showed plenty of sandy beaches. So after a short explore on the dinghy we upped anchor and cruised slowly down to Powell Cay. Earlier in this trip we only had the opportunity to spend once night at Powell as we had to get to Marsh Harbour to pick guests up, so we were happy to spend more time there. We spent two wonderful days anchored off the beaches there. Yet again the forecast called for wind, with gusts to 35. So we booked back into Green turtle Club for a couple of nights.