A Boat on land, Car in the Sea (1/11 Marsh Harbour, Abacos)

Take my time, do things slow. A lesson hard learned on the cruise south, when I was still Stateside. I was fully practicing this lesson when I was weighing the anchor on that morning, during my last time at Man-O-War Cay. Winds were still plenty strong, somewhere between twenty and twenty five knots. Subsided a bit from the thirty to thirty five from the night before. So I found myself moving between bow and stern to weigh the anchor. Sonora was being pushed back by the winds hard enough that I was unable to pull the boat up towards the anchor by hand. I’d move the boat up using the engine about ten feet at a time, then pull in the slack rode, then make fast the rode. I did that until the anchor was directly beneath the bow of the boat. Then, I drove over the anchor, and easily pulled up the anchor onto the roller.

It was a very tight anchorage and while I did not have any boats to hit nearby, there were plenty of mooring balls and related tackle I wanted to avoid. But believe it or not, even with all that wind, I had plenty of time to move back up to the bow and secure the anchor. I think I was even able to put the rode back in through the hawspipe as I was hauling the rode up. Of course, before I even started the engine, I sat and mentally walked through all of these steps. The only scenario where this would be a problem is if I was in a storm, and I had to quickly weigh the anchor as my anchorage neighbor had to do in St. Augustine. I think in that scenario, I’ll take a bit more risk. I’d drive the boat forward much more than ten feet. I’d get half the rode up, then do that one more time, and if the anchor was still forward of the boat, screw it. I’m driving over the anchor and dragging the anchor a bit.

Leaving Man-o-War was trippy, going through that very small inlet with more wind and waves. Since you can see anything coming into the lagoon, this time I did not make a securite call as I had when I was coming into the harbour. The sail to Marsh Harbour was very quick. After all, it was only about four nautical miles as the crow flies. Just about an hour travelling six nautical miles.

I found the Sea of Abaco under these conditions quite interesting. If this was out in the open ocean, I’d be going over some big rolling waves with these winds. But behind the barrier reef and the out islands, the waves were much smaller. They are a tad bit sharper, reminiscent of Chesapeake Bay waves, but they did not get as large. For four nautical miles, I did not bother taking off the mainsail cover. At idle power and maybe three quarters of the genoa out, I made just under six knots going somewhat downwind.

I found a large, empty anchorage marked by a single grounded, destroyed boat. I saw a couple of more active cruising boats anchored there, and maybe two derelict boats at anchor. A small red floating buoy marked a sunken car to avoid. I moved about the anchorage trying to pick the absolute best spot to anchor. What area will be more protected from the North East winds coming in the next day? Do I anchor close to town, where its less protected from the wind and waves? What spot am I least likely going to encounter boats dragging anchor?

While I was doing this, a dinghy came close to me, headed for its mothership that was nearby. I waved at the man – an older but fit gentleman with a mustache. Looked like he could be a character on Baywatch. He pulled alongside and gave me all sorts of tips about the island. He’d been cruising this area as a pseudo-expat for over three decades. So much helpful information. Where to get fuel, where to try and get water. Laundry. He also warned me that most things aren’t reopened here, and that they haven’t made the recovery progress that the out islands have been able to do. His name was Bruce, and he was on a beautiful Pearson 40 named Mambo. I told him I’ll come by his boat at some point, maybe we could hang out for a bit. He was welcome to the idea.

I topped off Sonora’s fuel tank with my dinghy can, making sure to leave a half a gallon for use on the dinghy itself. Sonora didn’t really need any more fuel, as the fuel level was at that point where if I were fueling up Sonora, I’d be starting to thinking about whether or not I was going to overfill the tank. But might as well get fuel when I can. I also put the water jugs in the dinghy.

Since it was a Sunday, I would only be able to check off one of the things I wanted to get, which was fuel. Bahamians are serious about being closed on Sunday. I remembered Phil Roberts in Green Turtle Cay, whom I rented a mooring ball from, telling me about how Sundays are for chruch.

The town was a bit sad. Almost all of the buildings I saw were destroyed, and I only saw minimal reconstruction activity. Despite this, the sound of power tools and saws in the distance reminded me of my days growing up in Korea, when it was experiencing a construction boom as it went from being a developing nation to a first world nation. You’d walk around the city and constantly hear noises from construction projects, with power saws being the most piercing sound of them all.

I scoped out a few take-away food trucks, all of them expensive, even by Bahamian standards. Then I found a restaurant that said it was open. I walked in, and immediately realized it wasn’t really a restaurant. The empty venue was blasting club music and it was dark inside, staffed with aggressively flirtatious women. It was definitely a place that primarily served alcohol, and I suspected they sold other ‘services’ too. They didn’t give me change for some of the tobacco I bought. I got swindled!

I found my way to the gas station. My land navigation isn’t that great. Despite being given directions from more than one source, it took me a few tries to find the gas station. My feet ached in protest. Eventually, I trotted up to the gas station with my small gas jug. There were a few cars parked in a row next to the single fuel pump, with guys sitting in fold-up chairs in the shade between the cars. One of them walked up. I wasn’t really sure if this was someone trying to hustle some money or not. Maybe I had to go inside and pay. But he was friendly, and asked me where I was from. Locals here are either distrusting of me, unsure of me, or fascinated by me — there aren’t a lot of Asians here. But it was the latter. I enjoy telling Bahamians about where I come from. It must seem so foreign to them. We chatted a bit after I got my gallon and a half of fuel without incident.

I walked by another restaurant on the way back. This one seemed to be primarily an outdoor patio type restaurant, run out of someone’s house. Cool! Maybe I’ll get to check it out sometime. But for now, I headed to Colors By The Sea, which is the only waterfront restaurant that is open in the entire city. Its actually quite picturesque there. The restaurant is an exclusively outdoor patio restaurant overlooking the harbour, clad in blue, yellow and purple.

The employees at Colors kind of gave me a cold shoulder. I seemed to get served last, and they didn’t want to even make small talk. I was hungry though, and I ate the delicious coconut cracked chicken and enjoyed the can of soda. Later Bruce would tell me its been like that – combination of suffering from hurricane destruction, asshole American, both US and Canadian, tourists, and the pandemic. It made me a bit more understanding of why people were acting the way they were.

I headed to Mambo on the way back to my boat. Bruce seemed really eager to get me aboard and hang out for a while. It made me a bit uneasy at first – I hope he wasn’t misunderstanding our mutual friendliness for anything else. I brought a bottle of vodka but ended up drinking his Chilean wine instead. No, he was just a friendly guy, and an fellow single hander. Turns out he has a martial arts background too. We talked about how we both grew up getting into a lot of fights, and how martial arts helped us be more disciplined and focused. Its really cool how someone forty years older than me from a different continent could still have such a similar experience growing up. By the way, Bruce is in his seventies. He could pass for someone in their fifties. That is how fit he was. Hopefully I can be like him in another thirty five years or so.

It was a really pleasant time hanging out on his beautiful boat. Mambo had the sleek, fast, sports-car-like look of an IOR boat from the 80’s. But she still looked very seaworthy. I must have pushed back his meal time for many hours since his recently grilled chicken was getting cold. So we exchanged contact information and I excused myself. I had quite a good impression of him. I hoped to see him again when I’m in Eleuthera and get to know him more.

I had a plan for the next day. I would do my laundry. My bedding needed a wash, because well, it hadn’t been washed for two weeks, and I’d been tracking all sorts of dust and sweat on it. I also really needed to wash my thick blanket. Two weeks back, some zucchini that was hanging in the storage net had rotted, dripping some rot-juice onto the blanket. I wanted to get that blanket clean and start using it as a huge pillow to rest my elbow on. Then I’m going to try to go grocery shopping. There was a huge grocery store called Maxwell’s, which was the biggest in the Abacos. It was the main reason for my stop here. Afterwards, if I had time, I wanted to dive Mermaid Reef which was just outside the anchorage.

The next morning, at the laundromat, another person came up to me and chatted me up. He was curious about where I was from and asked me about religion in Korea. I told him that a majority of religious people in Korea are protestant Christian now, which seemed to please him, but that I was a Buddhist. This didn’t seem to bother him but he definitely talked about how he thinks God is the most important thing in anyone’s life, and how he is the creator and seer of everything. I could tell that his relationship with his God was special to him. People in the Bahamas are deeply religious in the most heartfelt, sincere way. This whole conversation happened while there was gospel music playing from the TV. A lot of Bahamian businesses tune into a Christian stream on Youtube and leave it up on their stereo system.

Everywhere I walked, you could see destruction. Stores were closed, buildings were missing their roof, and incredible, unexpected debris littered the scene. It must have been such a traumatic experience for the locals. The best way I could describe Marsh Harbour was that it was absolutely flattened by the hurricane Dorian. I saw a fishing boat rusting away in the middle of a grassy field. It reminded me of a multiplayer stage on this post-apocalyptic video game I used to play — The Last of Us. It must have been tossed there by the storm surge and the wind during the hurricanes. So there was a big boat on land, and a car in the water. You couldn’t deny the humor in that. In the face of so much suffering, perhaps laughing is the best thing to do. As I was pondering this, I walked by a house that said ‘The Alburys’ at the gate. The Albury family from Man-O-War must be prolific and successful. I kept seeing their names throughout the Abacos.

My horrible land navigation skills eventually got me to the grocery store. Unfortunately, a store employee coldly told me the store was closed. Bummer. You can’t trust any google business listings in these islands. Local knowledge is king. A small defeat, but it was such a calm, beautiful day. Perfect day to go diving. A few hours after my laundry was done, I was motoring out on my dinghy towards Mermaid Reef.

The charts showed mooring balls throughout the reef, but I only saw two of them at the eastern end of the reef. As I got my weight belt and fins on, I saw a man swimming a back stroke along the coast, perhaps sixty meters from me. I waved at him, and observed him for a bit to make sure he wasn’t in distress. No, it looked like he was working out. But he was mumbling to himself loudly in a language I didn’t understand. I think he was cussing at himself. It made me inwardly chuckle. A guy working out, cussing himself out for deciding to do such a painful exercise.

I took a dunk and swam around for a while but I did not see any reef structures in sight. Instead, I saw a lot of storm debris. A lot of window panels and large and small pieces of tree strewn about the sea floor. Of course, the wildlife took full advantage of it. A variety of small fish, wrasse, blennies and such would guard both live coral and debris alike. Some of the fish are incredibly brave. Particularly damselfish. The wrasse and blennies almost seemed like they were relying on the protection of their tiny but angry friend. They’d dart around nervously as you hover around their home, still holding their ground. Their tiny mouths would stay pointed at me, ready to try and do some damage. It would barely tickle me but I respected them for their bravado. Only when your dive mask is inches from them, do they re-assess their relative stature and run for cover.

Some large spotted snapper swam by me at a cautious distance. They also seemed to sort of patrol the area, and they moved with intention. Too bad I can’t hunt here. This is a protected reef. These guys would make really good eating. I passed by a rock with a hole in the middle. A fish I didn’t recognize, with spiny fins, and big eyes, guarded this entrance. Right by the entrance was a tentacled anemone. Cool! This fish immediately darted inside as my shadow crossed his adobe.

I dove a few pieces of debris to see if there were any lobster. They weren’t. I bet you that locals harvested all the near shore lobster. Where were all of the lobsters? What happened to the stories of how everyone else found them under any given rock? I swam around a bit aimlessly, in a loose search pattern. Eventually, I saw large, concentrated school of fish under me, camoflauged against the white sand. My eyes followed them to a small but sizeable reef that almost took my breath away.

The reef was small and lacking in live coral, but it was absolutely full of many types of fish. I slowly swam towards it, not to spook the fish. I spotted a grouper, three different species of snapper, angelfish and other fishes I did not recognize. I admired them at the surface for a while, and then I dove the reef.

Everything looks so different at eye level. From down below, I saw a whole different world. Each marine entity before my eyes were busy doing something, not simply swimming around aimlessly. Some darted in and out of holes. A pair of snapper squared off of each other and fought. Schoolmaster snapper, true to their namesake, schooled together in incredible formations, with a few other species of fish swimming among them. I’d like to think that some were a bit confused, because they seemed to catch themselves and leave the school to go back to their favorite patch of reef. Then I saw the small, colorful fish, more stationary, guarding their little patch of coral.

Almost ironically, the biggest fish there was also the most fearful. There was a single Nassau grouper there that would take flight at the first hint I was moving in its direction. It’d dart behind a rock, then peek out to see if I was still there. But as it moved through the sand and coral, it would change colors. I did not know they could do that.

Lets relax, and move slow, and take my time. The fish seemed to warm up to my presence a bit, and even started acting curious. If I moved in slowly, some of the schooling fish let me swim among them. Angelfish popped out of their holes to catch a quick glimpse of me.

I wanted to get some selfies of me diving. I left the camera perched on a rock, and went to pose. Failing to strike a good pose, I resurfaced with the camera still on the rock. The schooling snapper rushed to the camera. They circled around the camera, shifting their schooling patterns, taking turns peering into the electronic eye that was the camera lens. I found this inquisitive behavior endearing. In such an alien world, I could see that both humans and fish shared a common emotion of curiosity. I found myself wondering if I’d ever be able to spear one? I’m sure when the time came, I wouldn’t hesitate. The human hunting drive is too strong. But at least in that moment I had my doubts.

I had planned to dive for sixty to ninety minutes, but I realized three hours flew by. I got back in my dinghy and rushed back to Sonora so I could wash up and dry off in leisure as I watched the sunset.

Back on the boat, a part of me wanted to stay on the boat and save money. But bad weather was coming in. I’d be potentially stuck at the boat for over 24 hours. So I put on my nice shirt, and dinghied back to shore to get some dessert.

Colors was staffed by the same staff that were there during my earlier visit. There were more customers too. This would be such a beautiful place to enjoy a meal if it weren’t for the destruction around it. I seemed to get the same cold shoulder, but my bartender was a bit more attentive this time. I wanted a cherry cheesecake but they were out — instead, the bartender suggested the fried banana cake, which turned out to be excellent (and came with ice cream!) This time, I only got a cup of soda. When I asked my bartender if I’ll get the rest of the coke from the can, she said ‘no, just the cup.’ I guess this is how it goes here. I resigned to this reality of flexible product delivery and just enjoyed my food.

Some of the locals were here on dates. A group of North Americans were being loud at a table. I saw another Caucasian dude I saw at my failed grocery store visit enjoying a beer. Hmm. Abaco city folks were much more quiet than Grand Bahamians. In Freeport, people were constantly shouting at the top of their lungs and laughing a lot. Over here, it was much more subdued. There was an air of cautiousness everywhere in Marsh Harbour.

The sound system was playing a lot of music from my early 2000’s. I love the taste of music Bahamians have. I ate my cake and ice cream to the sounds of Ja Rule, Chris Brown, Jay-Z and Beyonce. In case you haven’t noticed, meals ashore are a special treat for a cruiser on a budget. My bartender came up to my area, took a quick look around and produced an already opened can of coca cola. She quickly poured the rest of the coke into my empty cup, and that sort of made my night. ‘Your welcome’ she responded, in that reserved, almost reluctant voice. Then she put her hands up and started moving to the music. As I left, I thanked her and she goes ‘You’re welcome’ without stopping any of her dancing. It reminded me of someone intentionally trying to be mean to someone they liked. It was endearing to me in some strange, back handed way. Just like how me and Alec were treated in Freeport, people are a bit more relaxed, lowering their guard a bit on your second visit.

I spent the rest of the evening watching movies, reading, sorting out clean laundry and relaxing. I stayed up late. I’d have all of the next twenty four hours to do some work from my laptop. I could afford to sleep in a bit. I thoroughly enjoyed my late night-in, temporarily reverting to the night-owl that was reminiscent of City Jerry back in the USA. To the sound of the winds whistling through my rigging, I passed out, my sore muscles thanking me for the relief that comes from finally being horizontal.

Hawsepipe – A hole at the bow where mooring lines and anchor rode passes through. On Sonora, this is a hole at the deck where the anchor line exists the anchor locker below deck.
IOR – Refers to a formula for sailboat design compliant with the International Offshore Racing rules. For a recreational sailor, cruising sailboat design generations are often divided into whatever ruleset was dominant at the time. Even if a boat wasn’t built to actual racing spec, the era’s leading boats will have been, thus influencing the contemporary designs. Sonora was influenced by Cruising Club of America (CCA) rules, which was the ruleset preceding the IOR rules.