Mackie Shoal and Morgan's Bluff

Spoiler alert. We didn't find Captain Morgan's treasure or his rum. We left Bimini around 1000, 13 April, to coincide with slack tide. We headed up the harbor to add some fuel while four sailboats left at the same time. Two of the sailboats, Patricia Marie and Liberty Call, were traveling with us. The other two were tagging along for the first leg to Mackie Shoal where the five of us were going to anchor for the night. Mackie Shoal is located in the Great Bahama Bank and is completely exposed in all directions with NO land in sight for miles. The ride to Mackie Shoal was nice and we anchored in 15 feet of water about three miles south of the 'magenta line' to avoid getting hit by other boats/ships in the night. 

As I was sitting on the back of the boat reading a book and enjoying a beverage, Sharon comes out and says, "I really hate to tell you this but the toilet doesn't flush." 😤 "The toilet doesn't flush" isn't simply a matter of breaking out a plunger to clear a log jam. Our toilets have macerators that grind up and liquify anything 💩 traveling from the bowl to the holding tank. "The toilet doesn't flush" typically means the blade is jammed which involves taking apart the macerator and unjamming it. 🤮 Our toilets flush with seawater. Seawater + urine = cement so I had a little scraping to do. Toilet 'fixed' just in time for sunset. 

At anchor on Mackie Shoal

Later that night Sharon and I went outside to see the stars. Except for our anchor lights, there were no lights around anywhere and the view of the sky was fantastic. That's also about the time the wind picked up. And picked up to about 13 knots and that's when the anchorage sucked! We got very little sleep while the boat rocked and rolled all night long with waves pounding into the hull. We had our anchor alarm set and portable VHF radio on but turned it off after the Coast Guard kept broadcasting a "pon pon" every hour. 

All five boats left right after sunrise and getting the anchor up on a pitching boat is quite a challenge. We decided to stay down below vs driving from the fly bridge for safety reasons -- the sea state was that bad. Another thing we have discovered is the anchor chain locker fills with water when taking waves over the bow. Soooo about every hour, one of us had to shop vac out the water. Poor Sharon spent a long time vacuuming out water in rough conditions. We are totally perplexed on how water is getting in!

Finally, after seven hours we arrived at our anchorage in Morgan's Bluff on Andros Island. It was definitely a welcome relief. We were both exhausted and had plenty of clean-up to do. There is an anchorage that is protected from all directions except out of the north. Fresh water is what attracted pirates here and supposedly Henry Morgan buried his treasure here.

Flybridge was a disaster.

Patricia Marie and Liberty Call pulled in three hours after us and we all stayed on our boats for the night -- except for Derek who had two dogs to walk. We had dinner and went to bed pretty early (for us). The next morning started with, "The toilet doesn't flush". Aaaahhhh! Time to take it apart again and really scrape the 'cement' out. I will spare you the details.

I also spent a good 45 minutes with Mrsims regarding our phone accounts. It is a good service when it works but very frustrating understanding HOW it works to get it to work. 

We all dinghied to the beach around noon to find Henry Morgan's cave. We found it but no buried treasure. Next we walked to Morgan's Bluff for a spectacular view of the ocean. After that, we decided to 'hit the town'. The town consists of a convenience store/gas station that was never open while we were there and Unca Harvey's bar. We had the strangest experience in Unca Harvey's. We never got served or even acknowledged and left after 15 minutes. Apparently the bartender can only do one thing at a time and that one thing was making hamburgers for a couple at the bar. So instead, we sat on the beach, drank pain killers and beers from our boats and had some snacks. The dogs, Chief and Sabian, got plenty of exercise. We even had a sting ray hang out with us the whole time.

The opening to Morgan's Cave. Is the Henry behind the tree?

Group spelunking pic

View from Morgan's Bluff

Inside Unca Harvey;s

This guy hung out with us all afternoon

The girls enjoying painkillers

That's about it for Morgan's Bluff. We all needed a down day after the night and day before. Supposedly we could have hitchhiked into Nichols Town or rented a car for the day but opted to stay in this quiet location. Having a beach all to yourself just doesn't get any better.