The trip to Treasure Cay

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Crossing from Florida is not the entire travel adventure.

We left West End for a long journey to Great Sale Cay, a long protected beach. We traveled east along the north short of Grand Bahama Island. You can see land most of the way but there is nothing much to see. Mostly scrub. No houses (or very,  very few). No towns.

We were the first 4 boats to arrive at Great Sale that day. This is a major stop for any boats going to and from the Abacos. If the wind is blowing from the south or east you anchor on the west side. We anchored on the west side. Before dark about 10 more vessels anchored with us.

The next day we headed for Green Turtle Cay. We left Great Sale traveling east then headed a little southeast through the channel between Great Abaco Island and the outer islands until we reached Green Turtle Cay, a well-known resort in the Abacos. We stopped there last time. Jim and Joy stayed here two months last time they visited. They never left it was so nice.

When you think “resort” you might be thinking about a big Hyatt in the tropics. This is not a Hyatt. The rooms are small and basic. The grounds are well tended but not like a Hyatt. The people are so friendly. You are there for the weather and the sun. It is like staying in a lodge. I imagine the Poconos used to be like this in the 1950s.

We had dinner at the restaurant at Green Turtle Resort. Libertad went to Bluff House across the way. Lots of boats anchor in the harbor here. We pulled in to a dock instead of anchoring just because we felt like it.

The next day we tackled Whale Cay. Libertad stayed in Green Turtle so it was Good Karma in the lead position, Hush a Bye in second and Jim’s Joy bringing up the end. We took the lead since we were the only ones who had been there before.

The funny thing is you can see Treasure Cay from Green Turtle. You just can’t get there from here because it is too shallow. There is a cut that avoids Whale Cay but it is shallow in all but the highest tide. Supposedly at high tide there is over 5 feet of water in that cut. The trouble is the cut is not visible clearly on the charts. Locals know where it is but as a tourist we don’t really want to take a chance on ruining the running gear over a track that is unclear. So we go the long way around.

Whale Cay is a long narrow strip of volcanic rock protecting the north end of the Abacos from the force of the Atlantic Ocean. You have to go on the outside into the ocean about 2 miles to get around Whale Cay to enter the Abaco Sea to get to Treasure Cay or any of the cool spots in the Abacos.

The whole trip from Green Turtle Cay around Whale Cay to Treasure Cay is less than 15 miles in distance. It takes about 2 to 3 hours the way we travel. But it could be treacherous in the wrong weather conditions. Anything with an N in it is awful because with Whale Cay’s northwest to southeast dimensions you take the wind and waves directly abeam with any wind and waves out of the north. This situation is to be avoided.

We rounded Whale Cay without incident. It was exciting but not dangerous. We rounded the corner into the calm blue waters of the Abaco Sea. And there it was. Treasure Cay. It was like coming home.

Treasure Cay is tucked into a wonderful hurricane hole, protected on three sides by land. It is a resort (think pretty pastel buildings with a rustic feel) with a marina capable of holding about 75 boats including big yachts upwards of 75 to 100 feet. There is a mooring field inside the entrance that can hold about 25 boats. On a normal day like today as I write this there are about 10 to 15 boats. One day when they predicted a big storm that didn’t happen the mooring field stuffed at least 30 to 40 boats in.

Jamal met us at the dock as we tied up. Jim’s Joy went first, then Hush a Bye then we came in last.

Tying up at a dock is a different experience here. The tides are about 1 to 2 feet, not huge but still you tie up loosely to accommodate the rise and fall. Tie up too tight and the boat doesn’t move properly. You could return and find your boat tilted because the water fell and the boat didn’t. Tie up too loosely and Katherine can’t get off the boat.

The trick to keeping it in the right spot, we discovered, was to use the two poles at the entrance to the dock. When we stern in with a port (left) side tie, we cross the two stern lines to keep the boat stable. We have a line from the port stern to the dock side near the swim platform. We have a line from the second port cleat directly to the dock. We use this line to pull the boat in so Katherine can get off.

The most important lines are in the front. On the port (left) side we loop a line around the pole and tie it to the bow cleat. We make this line sort of loose to accommodate the tide. Then we loop a line around the pole and tie it to the front mid-cleat. We make this one tight so the boat doesn’t slide back. 

We do the same on the starboard (right) side. With these two tight lines around the pole to the front mid-cleats, the boat stays pretty stable during tides and doesn’t knock against the dock or the poles.

The electric is metered so we turn off lights and unplug chargers when not in use. Nothing like high fees to make one a conservationist. Water is $12 per day for any day you use water. So we only use water periodically. When we plug in the hose we are likely to fill the holding tanks (100 gallons of water!), take showers and wash the boat. 

As I write this we have been here almost a month and we’ve used water on 4 or 5 occasions. We are clean, don't get me wrong! We just use our water judiciously!!