Tilloo Cay

Wild and beautiful Tilloo Cay stretches for four and half miles between the ocean and the Sea of Abaco. We have always liked this Cay for an anchorage near Tavern Cay that no one seemed to use very much. This year there was construction going on ashore and several boats in the anchorage, so we sailed further west along the rocky coast to a shallow bay near Tilloo Pond an almost landlocked harbor in the center of the Cay.

The Sea of Abaco was tranquil with only a light chop and the high bluffs of Tilloo made this a serene spot to spend a few days all by ourselves. A lazy high pressure ridge had taken up residence above us, giving the islands days and days of beautiful weather. Out on the ocean huge rollers lumbered onto Tilloo's rocky coast.









On our second day at Tilloo we ventured ashore taking the dinghy into Tilloo pond and tying it up on the edge of the mangroves where there was a bit of bare land. The island is mostly covered with low coppice. At the western end of the island the land rises to a bluff. Storms have eroded a section creating a gully in the dune where spiky tan limestone spires crowd together in the golden sand.










The ocean face of Tilloo is guarded by a parapet of grey limestone spires standing like soldiers guarding the shore.








Three wooden utility poles flung high like matchsticks upon the backbone of Tilloo bear witness to the power of ocean storms wearing away the middle of the Cay. These storms have also worn a dip into the middle of the island near where Tilloo pond lies.












This shallow basin on the ridge of Tilloo is littered with sea tossed rubbish. The magnitude of plastic rubble accumulated there dri ves home the fact that plastic leaves a lasting scar on the environment. Shoes and plastic bottles are particularly plentiful in this debris. At one point Peter was able to collect more than twenty plastic shoes and soles within a ten-foot area!






Despite this area of trash, Tilloo is one of the most beautiful and undeveloped of these islands. Only a few homes and cottages cluster around Tilloo Pond and the ends of the Cay. On our dinghy ride back to the boat, we surprised a family of Oystercatchers fishing along the rocky shore.








As the high pressure ridge began to weaken, the winds began to clock more to the south making our secluded anchorage a little bumpy, so we raised our anchor and sailed across the sea of Abaco to find another quiet anchorage in the vicinity of Matt Lowe’s Cay, just off Great Abaco.