Spanish Cay to Green Turtle Cay

So today we followed the many cruisers who leave Spanish Cay every day and headed south. Ideally we would like to go around Whale Cay and on to Hopetown - our final (near term) destination. Unfortunately, the Abacos are a chain of Islands with a barrier reef separating them from the Atlantic ocean ( I believe it is the largest or second largest reef in the northern hemisphere). For most of our travels we can sail within the islands and reefs in the Sea of Abaco - this is the bay between the outer islands/reefs and the main island of Abaco. For those who would like a look-see at the layout, here you go (arranged from north to south, each map connects with the one below - little overlap though):





The difficulty is that at a place called Whale Cay (top of second map), the water inside of the islands is too shallow for us to cross, and we must go outside of the island (Whale Cay) and back into the bay, crossing out into the reef area. The water channels are deep enough, but large swells from the Atlantic often break over the reef and the passage around Whale Cay. This is called a "Rage" and makes the route unpassable. From the picture at the top of the this posting you can see the rough weather on the passage from Spanish to Green Turtle - it was blowing 30 kts in 3ft chop - one of the bouncy-est rides since Annapolis!

Given the poor weather we decided to duck into Green Turtle Cay. There are two harbours, both of which with very shallow inlets. We decided to brave White Sound (the other harbour is.... Black Sound!) entrance. It is marked 5-6 ft. at low tide. Wind-Lass draws 5.5 ft, so we are cutting things close, especially when the depths are not very reliable! We went in 2 hrs before high tide (should be a foot or two above the low tide depths, i.e. 6-7ft.) Right as we were entering the depth sounder started dropping from 10 ft....8ft...7ft..6ft...5.8ft!!!! and then back to 7 ft. We followed the buoys into the harbour, however they end just before the channel opens up into the harbour. Luckaly, the boat ahead of us (which draws the same amount of water as us) ran aground to the right of the channel....so we decided to go to the left side! (They got off fine after about 15 min). We anchored in 10 ft of water in 25 kt winds with boats 100ft from one another. Good thing Wind-lass crew is experiienced in Block Island! (The anchoring there is windy, poor holding, and lots of wind too!!). It took us 3 tries, but we got it and settled in for the night...except for the captain who heard that there was a live band at the Green Turtle Club Resort that evening! The music was typical Island, upbeat tempo and simple rhythms - kind of like a steel band, but with vocals and electronic instruments. Lot's of dancing, but not by the captain - he seemed to straddle the age groups by 15 year (older and younger!).