I will attempt to catch the blog up as best I can.
Monday March 20th, 2017
In order to get from the Marsh Harbour (southern Abaco) to the Northern Abaco area you must pass through the Whale Cay Cut. This is a tricky and potentially harrowing exercise if conditions are against you.
If you think of the Bahamas as a shallow saucer of water surrounded by the deep ocean. Every 6 hours plus or minus 3 feet of ocean has to get into the saucer and leave the saucer as the tide flows. Many of the areas around the saucer have islands or reefs that slow the flow of water. Narrow cuts exist here and there that are deep enough to transit with boats. These narrow deeper cuts also have very fast tidal current flow. When this tidal flow is against the ocean swells you get what is called a rage. The swells are increased in size and power and can literally bash boats to bits.
You have options. You wait for the swells to be gone or you wait for the tidal flow to be at its highest and lowest… no flow. We waited for the tidal flow to be in the same direction as the swells and had a reasonable crossing of the Whale Cay Cut. We bounced and slapped around but it was manageable.
Our stop for the night was No Name Cay. Grant and Cindy Crowson and their trawler ‘As the Crow flies’ are based at neighbouring Green Turtle Cay. Grant helps with the feeding and maintenance of the herd of pigs swimming pigs that live on No Name Cay. Not unlike farming at home, farmers have to provide sustenance for their animals. There is not much of a food supply for the pigs on the island and certainly there is little to no fresh water.
You may have heard about the pigs at Staniel Cay that recently died. Bib mystery… Likely the culprit is that they didn’t get enough fresh water. Stories were flying around that the tourists poisoned the pigs with alcohol or something else… This turned out to be a bit of a swine-dle. Reportedly there was an autopsy followed by a BBQ to determine the actual cause of death of the pigs. Preliminary results say they ate too much sand in conjunction with the food tourists would throw on the beach. I still stand by the lack of fresh water, but what I know about pigs is on the back of a mustard bottle.
The No name pigs will swim and they do beg when the tourists bring in ‘pig appropriate’ food. ML was very popular with the aquatic pork. She had sliced apples and carrots and initially all parties squealed with delight… Then the sows heard the commotion and or smelled the apples and carrots and cleared the path to ML who was now running dropping food to slow the sow advance. I wanted to get some video of ML feeding the hogs to send home for Harrison. By the time I got the camera ready she was using her food to slow the charge of the swine on her retreat to the dinghy.
After our outing with the pigs… or the food was depleted and all parties lost interest we moved on with our day. We did what cruisers do, we went bopping around exploring. We found some nice beaches and we searched for sea glass and sea beans and whatever interesting flotsam and jetsam we could find. It is distressing that most of the flotsam and jetsam is human garbage.
