Voyage of Rhombus 2018 - Leg 6
The Southern Sea of Abaco By Fred Braman
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Isolated and beautiful, Little Harbour can quench your “artistic” thirst or the other kind!
n last month’s issue, crew Steve DiFranco and I toured Spanish Wells and then Rhombus headed north to the Abacos. We had an ideal crossing of the Northeast Providence Channel from Spanish Wells, Eleuthera, and arrived in the Abaco Islands in mid-afternoon on May 25. We entered the popular Sea of Abaco via the Little Harbour Bar Pass, prone to large following seas and recommended only for well-settled weather. The North Bar Channel, a few miles farther on, is a safer entrance in less than perfect conditions. We felt fortunate to be here as the day we chose to travel was the first good crossing day in weeks. It was also on a mid and rising tide, important to entering Little Harbor even for a shoal draft vessel like Rhombus. Once through the ocean pass Little Harbour is about a mile inside the Sea of Abaco, the large cruising area bounded on the east by small islands and the world’s fourth longest barrier reef, and on the west by Great Abaco Island. You can’t see the harbor channel entrance right away, but head for the slip of land called Tom Curry Point with high banks and a pink house on top. As you get closer, you will pick up the channel markers and entry is straightforward as long as you have enough water to enter the harbor. Low-tide depths can approach three feet. Little Harbour We hoped to spend a couple days at Little Harbour, a unique place with an interesting history. Randolph Johnston brought his family here in the early 1950s to pursue his art—metal sculpture. The Johnstons were from the Northeast U.S. and Randolph was a college professor who just wanted to create art and not teach it. He also had become disillusioned with the world’s direction and wanted a place “off the grid” in which to pursue his art and raise his three sons. They With an early start from Spanish Wells and terrific downwind sailing conditions, we made the 50-mile trip to the Abaco Islands in a little more than eight hours. We also arrived at a perfect tide-time to cross the shallow entrance into Little Harbour.
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February 2019 S O U T H W I N D S
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