Long Island: Clarence Town

Saturday, May 12, 2007

023-6.300 N
074-57.000 W

Ahoy from Clarence Town on Long Island!

The last time that you heard from us we were at Castle Island and thinking about making the jump back to Fish Cay. We weren't sure about the swell being generated from tropical storm Andrea, but we decided to stick our neck out and see what the swells were like and what direction they were coming from. As we rounded the southern tip of Castle Island we were treated to some incredible views of huge waves cresting and rolling onto shore. We 6 to 8' swells from the NNW, but they had long periods and generated much larger waves when they reached the shallows surrounding the island. While it was sure cool to look at, you definitely wanted to make sure that well away from the surf.

The trip to Fish Cay was uneventful other than the roller coaster ride up and down the swells. We got in to the anchorage in the early afternoon and BJ and I even managed to get a dive in. Crooked Island provided wonderful protection from the swells and it appeared that we would have a good nights sleep. That wasn't to be the case as at about 10 PM a huge thunderstorm formed over the Bight of the Acklins and kept going for about 6 hours. I finally got to bed around 2 when it slid to our north. I suspect that the bight is a breeding ground for thunderstorms as the water is so warm and it's surrounded by nice warm land to provide updrafts.

The next day we headed to Little Harbor on Long Island. We knew that it would provide nice protection from the swells, and it was great. It was a bit exciting riding the swells in through the cut with the surf breaking on either side. That night we were surrounded by thunderstorms, but happily they didn't effect us.

On Thursday we headed to Clarence Town on Long Island so that we could rent a car and explore the island. We had wanted to pull into the Flying Fish Marina, but there was a fishing tournament in progress and there wasn't any space. Instead we anchored across the bay along with a bunch of other boats, including 2 mega-yachts rafted together with their sports fishing boats rafted to them and their smaller fast boats rafted behind them! Wow, this gave a new definition to rafting!

For those of you who are bemoaning the price of fuel in the US, you should be glad that you aren't hear. Diesel is $4.70/gal and gasoline is $5.07/gal!

On Friday we rented a car and headed off to explore the island. It was hard to get lost as there's only 1 road stretching the 75 mile length of the island. The island is at most 4 miles wide and it gets quite a bit narrower at points. I must say that this is one of the cleanest islands that we've seen. Unlike some other islands, there's no trash along the roads and the houses are well painted and landscaped. The people were very friendly and we had a lot of fun.

Our nights have been disrupted regularly by intense thunderstorms. We haven't had strong winds, but the lightening has been intense and we've been up for hours while these work their way through here. The forecast is for the squalls to increase and become much more intense over the next 4 days. I sure hope not!

There's been a fishing tournement at the marina this weekend. It's just for locals, but somehow attracted over $23K in prize money. It seems that the biggest money category was for the most pounds of fish. Clearly the rules which foreigners have to abide by don't apply to the locals as they're bringing in LOTS of fish. This is clearly the event of the season!

On the SE side of the anchorage there's a large blue hole which is just a 30' deep hole in the sand and it's not very interesting. What is interesting is the tidal creek which is past the blue hole. The creek meanders all of the way back to ocean. Plan to go there around high tide as it gets quite shallow.

Our plans are to move to Rum Cay tomorrow and hang out there for a few days. The real goal is to make it back to Conception Island and dive, but Conception doesn't have good protection from the N and there's a cold front coming through on Tuesday.

-- Geoff & Sue

For the cruiser:

The Flying Fish marina has 16 slips and their current rate is $1.40/ft. 30A power is $15/day. Laundry is $4 for wash and $4 to dry. Water is $0.40/gal. They have a nice restaurant and the entire marina is very well maintained.

The anchorage behind Strachan Cay has excellent holding in sand in 8' to 16' MLW.
Log ID: 959