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From Marsh Harbour · 7 nights · From Marsh Harbour
The northern sailing ground, flat behind the cays, with Loyalist villages and a candy-striped lighthouse
Best months
November - May
How long
8 Days / 7 Nights
Start and finish
Marsh Harbour to Marsh Harbour
Planned by
The Ahoy Club charter team
The idea of the week
A different trip from the Exumas, and a different group usually: the Abacos are for people who want to sail. The cays sit along the outside of Great Abaco with the Sea of Abaco between, shallow and flat, so the sailing is easy and no leg is more than two hours. The villages were settled by American Loyalists after 1783 and still look like New England under palms: Hope Town with its lighthouse, Man-O-War with its boatbuilders, New Plymouth on Green Turtle.
Fly into Marsh Harbour, which has its own flights from Florida and Nassau. Total cruising for the week is about eight hours. We do not join the Abacos to the Exumas in one week; a day of open water separates them. Superyacht charters start on any day of the week, so the route stands on its own. Legs are approximate, at a steady ten knots, and the captain adjusts them for the weather and the tide on the day. The banks are shallow, so the yacht moves in daylight and takes her time.
The route
What the crew arrange along the way
The beach picnic, on a sandbar or in your own bay
The crew land a table, chairs, umbrellas and a kitchen and cook lunch there, with the yacht in view. Ellie's favourite is the little bay at Pipe Cay, but the Exumas have more picnic beaches than we could list, and a sandbar that only exists at low tide is the Bahamas version.
A themed day or night on board, at least one
The Bahamas is about the boat, so we plan at least one themed day or night. Tell us the idea before the charter and the crew have the costumes and decorations ready. Pirate night suits the Exumas: half these cays were pirate anchorages.
The float-off day
Ellie's ritual. Every toy that floats goes in the water: the pool detached from the boat, the mats, the loungers. The esky goes in with them, and everyone drifts off together for the afternoon with drinks and snacks and nothing to do. Any yacht with floating mats can do it; the ones with a sea pool do it best.
Day by day
6 nm · 40 min · Board, then the lighthouse
Board at Marsh Harbour, twenty minutes from the airport, and cross to Hope Town, forty minutes away. Moor inside the harbour under the candy-striped lighthouse, the last kerosene-lit one in the world, and climb its hundred and one steps before dinner at Firefly on the sunset side of the cay.
Little Harbour, southern Abacos · 14 nm · 1.5 h · Pete's Pub and the reef
South down the Sea of Abaco, with a stop to snorkel the reef at Sandy Cay on the way. Little Harbour is a near-circular bay with Pete's Pub on the sand, a beach bar and bronze foundry the Johnston family have run since the fifties. Lunch there, a swim, and the quietest night of the week.
18 nm · 1.75 h · The boatbuilders' village
Back up the sea to Man-O-War, a dry, tidy village that has built wooden boats for two centuries. Walk the lanes to the Albury sail-bag workshop, cross to the Atlantic beach, and swim off the boat in the afternoon. The sailing yachts in the fleet earn their keep on this leg.
7 nm · 45 min · Nippers on the dune
Forty-five minutes north. Great Guana has one of the best beaches in the Bahamas on its Atlantic side and Nippers on the dune above it, the bar the Abacos are known for, with frozen rum punch and the Sunday pig roast if the week lands one. Grabbers on the sea side for sunset.
Treasure Cay, Great Abaco · 10 nm · 1 h · Three miles of beach
Across to the mainland side and three miles of beach that is usually empty. A beach day with the toys, the float-off if the water is flat, lunch at the marina, and the only golf course in the Abacos for anyone who wants it.
7 nm · 45 min · New Plymouth and the Goombay Smash
The northern end of the week. New Plymouth is the prettiest of the Loyalist villages, with a sculpture garden to its founders and Miss Emily's Blue Bee Bar, where the Goombay Smash was invented. White Sound for the night, and the themed night on board.
Hope Town, Elbow Cay · 21 nm · 2 h · Back down the sea for the last night
Two hours back down the Sea of Abaco with the breeze on the beam. A last swim off Tahiti Beach at the south end of Elbow Cay, where a sandbar appears at low tide, and the farewell dinner at the Abaco Inn on the ridge with the Atlantic on one side and the sea on the other.
Marsh Harbour, Great Abaco · 6 nm · 40 min · Disembark
Forty minutes back to Marsh Harbour after breakfast. The airport is twenty minutes from the marina.
Make this week yours
This is a sample week, planned by the Ahoy Club charter team from trips we have run before. Every stop moves with the weather, the tide and the group. We reshape it around your yacht and your dates, book the tables and quote the rate.
Australia
+61 (02) 9327 3333
Europe
+33 4 9367 3735
USA
+1 561 813 7511
ahoyclub.com · charter@ahoyclub.com
https://ahoyclub.com/charter/itinerary/abacos-1-week
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