Sunday, March 16, 2008

Archers Cay: March 5th










We had never been to Archers Cay, but it looked like a neat anchorage and the wind was right to check it out. So we sailed there from Guana to pay it a visit.


We were rewarded with an interesting time. As you can see, anchorage is a small bay formed by a group of tiny islands, the largest of which is Archer. We dinghied ashore to explore. In one of the tiny bays we found what looked to be a long dock that had been pushed out of shape by hurricane winds. It curled like a ribbon but was still attached to its pilings.


The dock turned out to be a bridge that connected a track road on Great Abaco to Archers Cay. We tied off the dink and started out to explore the road. The first thing we came to was an area that seemed to be a dumping spot of sorts. Here Peter discovered a dandy of pice of stainless steel that must have been a bow pulpit on a large boat. Still fastened to it, were several shiny stainless fittings. These might be useful, Peter thought and made a plan to come back the following day with some tools to retrieve them. We also found a tremendous quantity of PVC piping.



We followed the track road for a mile or two. The road passed from one to another hammock floating in shallow streams or small tidal pools.


Off in the distance we could see the pine forest. Abaco once had abundant pine forests but they were heavily harvested back in the 60's. They are all inland on Great Abaco, so we had never seen them. We followed the track road which must have been part of a lumbering operation and came to the forest. The wind whispered in the pines a soothing sound I hadn't heard since my last ramble in Macomb Park back home.


We saw lots of birds on our walk and the next day I returned to the pinewoods to take a few pictures while Peter retrieved his stainless. Archers were one of the original Loyalists to settle here, so I imagine this remote area of Abaco was at one time part of that family's land. Our visit here was cut short by the weather, but we hope to return and explore a little more.

No comments: