{"id":1840,"date":"2013-04-15T21:56:14","date_gmt":"2013-04-15T21:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=1840"},"modified":"2013-04-15T21:56:14","modified_gmt":"2013-04-15T21:56:14","slug":"getting-into-the-abaco-groove-and-a-blue-hole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=1840","title":{"rendered":"Getting into the Abaco groove and a blue hole"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a few days in Little Harbor, we moved up island a bit to Marsh Harbor.\u00a0\u00a0 Marsh Harbor is the third largest city in the Bahamas and a good provisioning spot for anyone planning to cruise the northern Bahamas.\u00a0 It\u2019s been an alarmingly long time since we have had access to laundry and\u00a0 a proper grocery and we are anxious to have clean sheets and some fresh food.<\/span><\/p>\n

And, provisioning has been on our mind so far and with less than 24 hours in the harbor we have already visited the grocery twice.\u00a0\u00a0 Can you say\u00a0avocados\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Don\u2019t ask what they cost\u2026<\/p>\n

The evening before last we had rain for the third time since arriving in the Bahamas in mid January.\u00a0 It rained hard and for several hours.\u00a0 The dink filled up with some 6\u201d of water and the boat was very well rinsed.\u00a0\u00a0 Everything had gotten pretty salty over the last few weeks since the last rain so we were happy to have a rinse-off.<\/p>\n

As you may recall, prior to our arriving in Marsh Harbor, we spent a few days in Little Harbor.\u00a0 While we were there we went for a walk and visited a small blue hole that someone had told us about.\u00a0 A blue hole is a salt water pond where the water has worn away the limestone rock and connected the hole to the ocean through an underground cave which might be a mile or more away.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As a result, as the tides rise and fall, the water in the blue hole rises and drops too.\u00a0 These holes can be miles from the ocean and yet have a connection so that fish can swim from one end to the other.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One of the blue holes in George Town is reputed to be over 5 miles long from the \u201chole\u201d to it\u2019s ocean source.<\/p>\n

In this case, the hole was very small and came up in the middle of the island over a mile from the ocean, assuming that the cave from hole to ocean was in a straight line, which it might not be.\u00a0 \u00a0The water in this hole was perfectly clear and just chock full of reef fish and some varieties that I had not seen prior to this spot.\"\"<\/a>Some of the folks that we has spoken to had taken fins and mask and had gone for a dip in the “pool”.\u00a0 It hardly looks big enough to swim around in, though.<\/span><\/p>\n

The vegetation in the Abacos, while still pretty desert like, was much more lush than in the Exumas and areas south of there.\u00a0\u00a0 I expect that it\u2019s greener here as there are so many more cold fronts with squalls and rain showers hitting this area in the winter than further south.\u00a0 These cacti were pretty impressive specimens.\u00a0\"\"<\/a>Bromeliads (related to pineapple but grow on other plants and not in the ground) are fairly abundant too and quite large.\u00a0 This one was about 2\u2019 tall. \u00a0 We also saw some native orchids, \u00a0but none were in bloom. \u00a0I think that they were encyclia.\"\"<\/a><\/span>On our way back to the harbor we passed this very nicely painted home.\u00a0 It seems that bright colors carry the day here. \u00a0 Colorful buildings are the norm here. \u00a0Even the\u00a0government\u00a0offices are brightly painted, usually pink. \u00a0 I like it.\"\"<\/a>So, after two days in Little Harbor we made our way out of the channel, which is only three feet deep at low tide, and sailed north to Marsh Harbor.\u00a0 The run was about 15 miles and quite circuitous given the many sandbars and shallow shoals that we had to go around to make the run.\u00a0 I was very glad to have a self tending jib so that\u00a0jibing\u00a0around each way point and shoal was less of a production.\u00a0 By the time we made it to within sight of Marsh Harbor the wind had piped up to over 20kts ahead of a squall which made for a spirited sail.<\/p>\n

Last night we will have a couple over for\u00a0cocktails<\/span>\u00a0to share stories and to hear what their first winter in the Bahamas was like. \u00a0They were from Rochester NY so I am sure that the temperatures here was a welcome change from winters at home.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today we did laundry!!! \u00a0Clean sheets!!! \u00a0I tried to get a haircut, my first one in several months. \u00a0No luck… \u00a0Hopefully tomorrow morning.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a few days in Little Harbor, we moved up island a bit to Marsh Harbor.\u00a0\u00a0 Marsh Harbor is the third largest city in the Bahamas and a good provisioning spot for anyone planning to cruise the northern Bahamas.\u00a0 It\u2019s been an alarmingly long time since we have had access to laundry and\u00a0 a proper […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1840"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1846,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840\/revisions\/1846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}