Multihulls In the Bahamas

In the Bahamas, I first fell under the spell of cruising cats. I was cruising the Abacos (the northern Bahamas) in my own 30 foot mono-hull "Cool Runnings". The cruising grounds of the Abacos are the most protected group of anchorages on the shallow side of the most beautiful chain of barrier islands you ever saw. Cats were rare back in the 80’s, but in the shallow waters of the Abaco Sea the advantages of Cats were so obvious, within moments of my first encounter with a 36 foot custom cat, I was hooked forever. I still imagine myself as that twenty something kid, so it came as a bit of a shock to wake up one morning and realize that I’m solidly middle aged. I have a job, a wife, a kid, a house, a 401K, two cars (neither of which is in the garage, because there is a boat project in the garage, thank God), and most shocking of all, I haven’t seen the Bahamas for almost 15 years. What was a man to do? Should I dump it all and return to the vagabond days of my youth? What would my broker say? If I left a "gone to the bathroom" sticky note on my computer at work, how long would they keep sending the paychecks? Surely after a few months someone would notice that the same stale sticky note perpetually proclaimed my imminent return and comment to payroll. Then again, maybe I could hire someone to put fresh sticky notes up every day with new and intriguing excuses. As I pondered the subtle details of my escape I hit upon an even better idea. I would simply charter a catamaran. Brilliant!

Suddenly feeling much better about my receding hairline, pasty white skin, and suburban digs, I got on the internet and found Sail Abaco at (you guessed it) www.sailabaco.net . While I surfed the web site, a new and dreadful question popped into my mind, what if the Abacos had filled up with strip malls, Holiday Inns, and Burger Kings in the last fifteen years? I sent Sail Abaco a quick note and asked if the Abacos were still the spectacular cruising area they were fifteen years ago. I got a prompt reply back from the owner, Mike Houghton, claiming that cruising in the Abacos was better now than ever, and not a Holiday Inn for a hundred miles. He assured me that after chartering one of his brand new PDQ cats that I would be convinced the Abacos couldn’t be beat and neither could a PDQ. With a bold claim like that, how could I possibly turn back now. I mentioned to few sailing buddies that my wife, Erinann, and I were going to the Bahamas, and before you new it we had eleven people on the crew list and filled up two boats, a PDQ 32 and a PDQ 36.

We landed in Marsh Harbor, caught a taxi to the Sail Abaco docks, and were met at our boat by Mike. He took us to our boats and we stowed our gear on two brand new PDQs that had just been put into charter service. I commented we had great luck getting new boats, but Mike explained that his boats are pretty much all ways brand new. We soon discovered Sail Abaco is a little different from your typical big charter operation. First of all, they only charter PDQ catamarans and are one of the few PDQ brokerages in the world. If you are interested in buying a cat and want to try out a performance cruiser/racer, then you should consider the "try before you buy" approach in the Abacos. Most of the boats in the Sail Abaco stable are boats people have purchased through him and then placed in his charter for just a year or two, before they sail off into the sunset. The boats are in pristine condition, because Mike, as a PDQ dealer, can make any repairs or upgrades while keeping the boat under the manufactures warranty.

After a thorough chart briefing we were off to find out if cruising in the Abacos had truly improved over the paradise of fifteen years ago. That’s a tall order to fill, but we had a week to see for ourselves. We split the crew between the two boats with my old sailing buddy John Holtrop skippering the thirty-two foot Heartbeat with Rosie, Jake, Kim, and Pandora as crew. I took the helm of the thirty-six foot Goodbye Columbus with my wife, Tim, Irina, Frank and Marilyn trimming the sheets.

Our first port of call was Man-O-War Cay a short sail away. The wind was blowing out of the north at a solid 18 to 20 knots. True to her advertised speed our PDQ 36 accelerated away like a wild horse even under a reefed main. Sailing the protected waters of the Abacos is like sailing on a lake; it would take tropical storm conditions to generate waves big enough to cause this cat any trouble. The skinny amas sliced through the chop without even breathing hard. The boat responded so well that we shook our reef, sheeted out the sail, and let that puppy rip. We got to Man-O-War so fast that we decided to turn around and just tack north for a bit to give the crew a chance to get used to trimming sail and coming about. I must have looked like a dog with his head out the window, lapping up the spray off the waves and grinning like a fool. Let the geeks back at the office try and stuff this into a memo. I was back. I was at the helm of fast cat in my old hangout with a full head of hair, ten pounds lighter, a great tan, and a wind blown face. (Hey, at least the wind and fast cat part was true.)

When we finally got our tacks down to acceptable quality we spun her around and headed for the narrow entrance to the harbor at Man-O-War Cay. The word narrow does not adequately describe this entrance. In earlier days I might have casually tossed out something like, "The entrance is a skosh tight for a hefty crosswind, but no worries mate." My clarity of years however, now lead me to do some math. The entrance is a scant thirty six feet wide, the twenty knot wind is ninety degrees cross to the entrance, and I have exactly sixty-seven minutes of helm time in an unfamiliar boat with a nineteen-foot beam. Hmm, what the hell. So much for the wisdom bestowed by gray hair. Miraculously, after much teeth gritting, second thoughts, and some full throttle maneuvering we made it into the tranquil anchorage and dropped our hook. "No worries mate."

Soon John pulled Heartbeat up onto our port side and we rafted up for the nightly party and floating four star restaurant. Lest you imagine that this is a bunch of hard core beanie weenie boaters, guess again. As it happens our chief cook and photographer, Pandora, is writing a book about cruising cooking called "Cooking on the Rail" that is based upon her many blue water sailing trips. Pandora, being a gourmet cook, is not inclined to make dishes that end in words like "hash" or "goulash". No, Pandora’s meals end in words like, "That was awesome, what was that sauce?" Myself, I’m fortunate to boil a can of soup without screwing it up, but for those of you that know a leek from a leak, there’s a sample recipe at the end of this article that Pandora called Abacos Halibut. With the Bahamas sunset view I’d have settled for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but since the cooks went to all the trouble, I had the halibut.

In the morning, we headed south. As we sailed under the warm sun a familiar voice greeted us from another PDQ 32 that materialized magically from behind a small island. It was Mike Houghton with two guests on a three day skippered charter. Mike raced along with us through the shallow waters and showed us just how nimble a PDQ could be. With Mike’s familiarity of the area, we skirted waters only a few feet deep and had a spectacular run down to the land of rum and green turtles, otherwise known as Little Harbor

Little Harbor is one of those special places cruisers all over the world tell their friends about. It is a very protected harbor with anchor space for dozens of boats, a killer snorkeling beach, and of course Pete’s Pub. The entire harbor is owned by the Johnston family and was settled by the famous bronze sculptor, Randolph Johnston and his family in the 1950’s. Randolph is no longer with us, but his son Pete, still runs the bronze foundry and also makes a wicked Pina Colada. Pete’s Pub would make for an article all in itself. It is the quintessential cruisers watering hole, complete with salty old coots, a thatched roof, sand floor, and no walls. That’s right, there are no walls, it’s just a few boards at elbow height sitting on the beach and a bunch of old cruisers T-shirts hanging from the rafters. What they lack in walls they make up in essentials, with all the cold beer and rum you could choke down. What more do you need in paradise?

Once again we rafted up, only this night there were three boats and the party was that much larger. We ate our hors d’oeuvre of baked brie with apricot sauce (eat your heart out) and I pulled out the guitar to play a few tunes. Several rum drinks later we decided to write a song about our trip. Four or five more rum punches and we’d actually written a song. As I recall (not that I recall much mind you) the preponderance of the verses were not suitable for my mother to be appraised of, so I’ll keep them to myself. However, the chorus went something like this: "Multihulls in the Bahamas, sailing to the island breeze. Multihulls in the Bahamas, happiness is all we sees" . Catchy, don’t you think? If you wish to know what it is like to cruise the Abacos, then please feel free to pick any tune you wish and hum this little ditty to yourself over and over again while drinking rum mixed with the fruit of your choice. Ah yes, that’s what cruising is all about.

The next day Mike arranged for Pete and his crew to open up the foundry for our private tour. They make marvelous sculptures and the entire bronze casting process is fascinating. The number of individual steps necessary to make a single bronze figure is staggering. It gave me an appreciation for their artistic skill and also their engineering expertise to actually make it all work. Whether you are an art connoisseur, or prefer velvet pictures of Elvis, you would find something to love in Pete’s foundry. Little Harbor is truly an amazing combination of world class art and bare foot atmosphere, how rare.

Mike and his charter guests sailed north and we decided to stick around and go snorkeling at the blue hole just outside of Little Harbor. For those not familiar with such things, a blue hole is a circular hole in the reef that goes straight down to spectacular depths. This particular one is located in very shallow waters in the dingy country known as the Bight of Old Robinson. The hole is only about forty feet across, but it goes down hundreds of feet and eventually connects to the Atlantic ocean miles away through underground caverns. A plaque near the hole memorializes some poor souls who recently died in it, reminding us that exploration is not without risk. With that in mind it was a bit creepy to snorkel over the lip of the blue hole and go instantly from being in warm water only a few feet deep into cold water with no bottom in sight. Then again, I rather like creepy so what the heck. Not being very bright, both Tim and I decided to hold a free diving contest and see who could dive the deepest into the hole on a breath of air. Tim won, but only by a smidgen (I’ll get you next time, arrgg!). As he disappeared into the black a good sixty feet down the eerie depths of the hole I thought to myself, "I hope our kids don’t do stupid contests like this", right.

The following day we set sail back north and put our lunch hook down just behind Sandy Cay. Sandy Cay is a marine preserve and has possibly the finest snorkeling in the Abacos. There was a gentle current running, so we swam against the current until we got to far end of the reef, and then just drifted back to the dingy. Along the way we saw a wide variety of coral and massive schools of fish. We followed one sea turtle by simply drifting along above him in current. It was like being in a giant aquarium, fantastic!

After lunch we headed for one of my other favorite places in the Abacos, Hope Town on Elbow Cay. Hope Town is that perfectly picturesque sea village with the candy stripe lighthouse that appears in every brochure about getaway vacations you have ever seen. Hope Town is a little touristy, but not in that Miami Beach or Disney Land fake sort of way. Hope Town is truly a quaint little fishing village that just happens to have a fresh coat of paint and a hand full of souvenir shops.

The Hope Town anchorage was a bit crowded due to a regatta that day so we snagged a couple of moorings to reduce our swinging room. We then spent the balance of the day playing tourist and picking up those critical trinkets that our lives would be shallower without. The next morning, we explored the beautiful lighthouse that dominates the west end of the harbor. The lighthouse is great fun to climb and the view is spectacular. It’s still a working lighthouse with gigantic glass freznel lenses that rotate on ancient bearings. It’s an engineering marvel of the 19^th century and it’s still doing it’s job in the 21^st century, that’s impressive by anyone’s standards.

By noon we were on our way to the neighboring island of Great Guana just a few miles away. One of the wonderful things about sailing in the Abacos is that most destinations are only an hour or two away, so there’s no rush to get to your next harbor. The shallow depths make cruising seem like a series of short hops in endless beautiful blue-green lakes. The water is so shallow that it is common to sail in six feet of water, making a catamaran the only way to go. In many ways, the Abacos are like the British Virgins were many years ago. Relaxed sailing in uncrowded waters with friendly locals and good amenities.

We anchored just north of the little settlement of Settlement. (Apparently, imagination was a tad scarce among the founding fathers of Great Guana.) As always I dove the anchor to make sure it wouldn’t drag. The typically sandy bottoms in the Abocos generally make anchoring a breeze. Since a mild blow was forecast for the evening, I was pleased that Sail Abaco put Delta anchors on their cats. I would sleep better knowing we had set a world class anchor in good holding ground. An old sloop named "Bliss", half sunk in the shallow bay less than a hundred yards away served as grim reminder of a previous storm and an anchor that didn’t make the owner proud.

No sooner had the anchor been set, than everyone started snorkeling the point and diving the wreck. Before long John decided that there just might be something worth salvaging on the wreck of the "Bliss", so off we went with a handful of screwdrivers and a pair of pliers. Not exactly your optimum tool kit, but cut us some slack, it’s a charter boat not a salvage scow. Anyway, it turned out that John had a nose for booty. Sure enough, there were some beautiful bronze turn buckles just waiting for an intrepid treasure hunter to find them. Incredibly, our meager tool kit did the job and we proudly returned to the mother ship full of tales of salvage and daring that rivaled the discovery of the Titanic. For it is not the value of booty that maters, it is the simple existence of booty that generates bragging rights. Viva la booty!

Sure enough, our week in the Abacos eventually came to an end as all weeks do. As we sailed back to Marsh Harbor to drop off our boats I reflected on Mike’s claim that the Abacos of my youth were still in existence. Well Mike, you were spot on mate, not a chain store or neon sign in the entire place. No crowded anchorages, no tacky tourist attractions, and Pete’s Pub is still just a bucket of ice and a couple of boards. You’ve got to dig that!