Marsh Harbor to Spencer's Bight

We left Marsh Harbor after filling up with fuel and water and headed to Lynyard Cay. With the winds blowing north by the time we were close, it was obvious Lynyard Cay was not going to be a smooth spot. We ended up weaving our way into the back of Spencer's Bight and tucked up in a beautiful area.

Miss Daisy tucked into Spencer's Bight

 We hit the beach with the kids and the dogs to explore. The beach seemed to stretch on for miles. We swam some, walked some, played and ran some. After a couple hours, we headed back to the boat ready to relax for the night.

Day 2

We headed out to snorkel Sandy Reef in the morning. The water was a little cool, but couldn't have been better visibility and with the sun shining, the water felt good with the heat. We spotted all sorts of angelfish, grouper, beautiful coral and lots of other colorful fish. After we finished there, we decided we'd stop by a wreck that was on our way back to the boat. We were not disappointed! The wreck seemed to be a ship from the 60's or 70's that had burned at some point and maybe floated until it stuck in the shallow 6-10' waters. There were sting rays everywhere, some were quite large. We saw a happy little sea turtle that came out of his hidey hole to say hello. Jake spotted a lionfish but unfortunately Steve didn't have his spear with him this time so the lionfish lucked out. Lots of beautiful fish, snapper, puffer fish, spadefish, parrotfish and many more. There were containers of old bottles, some you could still see the Pepsi logo and we even found one that had melted with the heat of the fire and was morphed out of shape. After we went back to the boat for lunch, we dropped the kids and dogs off,  Steve got his wetsuit and spear, we headed back for some more. Steve caught the lionfish and we got two large conchs. We really enjoyed that wreck but after about 5 hours of swimming, a person tends to get worn out! We let the two conchs go at the boat since I was in no mood to cook that for dinner and Grandma ended up fileting Steve's fish for him and fried it up so he could enjoy his catch. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing after a long day in the sun.

Large Starfish were everywhere

Day 3

We decided we would go explore the other side of Spencer's Bight where we had read about an abandoned mill left empty for 100 years. We could see some ruins from our boat so we set out in that direction. Once we got to shore, we were in for a real treat. The history behind this site began in 1906, when Wilson City was built by The Bahamas Timber Company, a firm based in Minneapolis, MN, to harvest the pinelands on Abaco. The mill employed 540 people by 1912 but by 1916, they had depleted the land of pine and were making so little returns that the lumber company dismantled the machinery and even some of the houses and shipped everything off. Wilson City became a ghost town, completely uninhabited. What was left was a lot of the stone structures. Buildings that had several walls still standing, made of huge blocks of quarried coral limestone covered in a thin layer of concrete. Other buildings were brick and there were remnants of the bricks scattered through the area. We walked along the shore line and found some more building ruins on the other side. Steve found some more coal (he's been collecting it since Powell Cay and tells the kids it's for their Christmas stockings), I found a nice sized piece of glass that appears to be from a lighthouse light and we found several other little collectibles. Eventually we're going to have to figure out what we will do with all the items we are collecting from the beaches but until then, I love finding these little treasures.

We wound our way back around and headed out in the dinghy to a second location we had noticed from Miss Daisy. Once we were close enough, we could see it was an empty fishing camp. It was a perfect spot for lunch and with ready-made fire pits, it was a good place for a campfire. Steve and Dani ran back to the boat to collect lunch, Grandma and the dogs, while Jake and I collected firewood. We had a nice time there for lunch and a little exploring and then headed back. 

By the time we returned to the boat, the swell from the ocean was getting pretty large and the winds were picking up so Miss Daisy felt like a bathtub toy bobbing around. We decided to raise anchor and head onward to find a calmer anchorage. After about an hour, we pulled into Little Harbor, riding the ocean swells all the way in through the narrow channel. We grabbed a mooring ball from Pete's Pub and called it ga night. All in all, Spencer's Bight turned out to be right up there with Powell Cay for my top spots. Not too bad for a last minute find!

~Mimzie