The winds were favorable and we untied from the dock and set out at slack high tide. According to the internet, the best shelling beach in Andros is called Somerset Beach, which is about a 3 miles south of the inlet to Fresh Creek. There is a US Navy AUTEC Base about 1.5 nm south of the inlet and the harbor area show “restricted to AUTEC” on the charts. The locals insisted that you’re not allowed to sail past the harbor and that you have to go around the reef if you want to go south. We didn’t want to take a chance, so we took the outside route and entered back through the reef at High Cay and made our way as far as we could in the shallow water to get to the beach. A short dinghy ride took us right onto the coveted beach, but it was a total let down. Maybe there were too many other sailors who also believed the internet and were there before us. We hardly found a handful of very ordinary shells, but at least now I know, and will not go back for shells.
The evening on anchor was not pleasant at all. The surge was bad and then around 2 am we started hitting the bottom every now and then as we reached low tide. It was a treacherous route through the coral heads back to deeper water, so we decided to rather wait until daylight before we lifted the anchor. Both of us went to lie down in the salon area, which seems to help us not hitting bottom anymore. As soon as it was light enough, we weighed anchor and slowly made our way back through the coral heads into the deep water to the east of the reef.
The 21 nm south was quite pleasant and we reached Middle Bight in good time. We entered Middle Bight between Big Wood Cay and Mangrove Cay and anchored behind Gibson Cay. As usual for us, we were the only boat in the anchorage, so we picked a spot not too close to the very shallow water to our south but outside of the fairly strong current that runs up and down the Bight. Since our last visit a few years back, two new buoys were installed but we chose not to pick them up until we’ve inspected them closer.
Gibson Cay has a few blue holes, a small beach on the eastern side and a very rocky interior. In settled weather the little beach is quite pleasant.
Big Wood Cay has a deserted AUTEC office and a large boat launching site that hasn’t been used in many years. It was interesting to see how they cut a line through the rocks where the cable for the submarines supposedly ran through. The east side of the island has a long beach but in 3 days we only met one other person walking on the beach. He was a pastor of a local church and he walked the beach every day looking for all kinds of treasures, including ambergris that washes up.
Strong winds were forecasted and we contemplated going into Mangrove Cay where there is a concrete harbor that was never completed, but then we realized that the entrance was directly east, and that was where the wind was expected to blow from. A dinghy ride and Andre diving onto the buoy closest to us, revealed that it was indeed very secure and we decided to wait out the storm on the buoy. It ended up being very comfortable on the buoy despite winds of about 30 knots with gusts of up to about 36 knots out of the east with absolutely no protection before us.
As soon as the blow was over, we decided to make for Green Cay, which is about 30 nm east of Middle Bight.