The Sea of Abaco and it's Rage

I thought it might be interesting to give those who are not familiar with the area an overview in order to make relative sense of distance and locations.

Seabright is currently located in Marsh Harbor boat harbor marina, our winter home until the Christmas winds die down in the Spring. We travel to various Cays on our dinghy. Here is a shot just after we came into Man-o-War. This is really a great way to travel when the winds are not howling and the Sea of Abaco is calm. We call our dinghy "One Winghy Dinghy" a novurania DL 430 with a 60hp Yamaha out board 4 stroke engine. It has a lot of gittyup and go when needed.

Looking at the Sea of Abaco, you can see a full screen view if you click on the chart to the right.
Seabright is located where you can see the red boat symbol in the slight center lower right where the lines all converge. Those lines are our tracks in and out of the marina.

Elbow Cay is to the right lower, Man-o-War is mid chart to the right and Guana Cay is more to the right upper part of the chart.

Hopetown is located on Elbow Cay and is about 7-8nm from Marsh Harbor east across the Sea of Abaco.

There is a nice but shallow anchorage and harbor as you can see to the right. Well protected on all sides. We can possibly take Seabright here but could only enter or leave on a high tide and that might be iffy?

Traveling to Man-o-War or Guana Cay it is easier on the dinghy to cut through John Cash Point rather than go out the long way out and around Matt Lowes Cay and Sugar Loaf Cay. It really cuts off some time. Again not sure I would take Seabright this way but on the dinghy it is great. I have highlighted the route in yellow.
From here it is an easy run across the Sea of Abaco, east and northeast to our two destinations.

The entrance to Man-o-War is a bit narrow but has great depths even at low tide. The red line is the course into town. There are moorings on both the north and south side. Once in, it can be a bit shallow in spots. There are quite a number of smaller boats and sail boaters tucked in and about. All in it is about 8nm from Marsh Harbor across to the channel in.

Guana Cay is fairly large with Bakers Bay to the north and the harbor about in the middle. It is approximately 12 nm from Marsh Harbor and is a bit more open than Hopetown. It is a busy place at times especially on Sundays with the pig roast at Nippers. There is a marina that can accommodate Seabright without depth issues called Orchard Bay Marina 






The Sea of Abaco is known for the
Abaco Rage. You can only enter the area, which is quite shallow, from certain inlets depending on the size and capability of the vessel. The ones we would consider using to the north are Whale Cut, in the middle Man-o-War and North Bar Channel to the south. Otherwise this area is surrounded by coral reefs which, while protecting the area from waves, makes the sea quite shallow. Not far off shore the water drops to significant depths. When we first arrived a supply vessel delivering food and mail was pushed up on the reef traveling through Man-o-War during a rage. The vessel was damaged and no one was hurt but supplies and mail were disrupted for a couple of weeks.  When you consider that everything needs to be shipped by boat it was quite an inconvenience.

"First is a phenomena of weather called the Abaco Rage. Its name pretty much conjures up something quite fierce, and you'd be correct. When conditions are right, storms often miles off shore from Abaco and often nowhere in sight, produce large ocean swells. As the westward headed swells approach the abrupt shallows of the Sea of Abaco, they "swell up" to 3 times their original height and also compress the distance between them. This phenomena is especially prevalent at the passages between the cays. One place of renowned is the Whale Cay Passage. This spot is notorious because the shallows behind the cay prevent large craft from passing even in normal conditions forcing them out into the ocean and back into the Sea of Abaco on the other side. When a full blown rage is present, any attempt of passage could be suicide and to pass with even small outboard type craft on an inside passage is also dangerous because the rollers can lift the boat upwards only to have it come crashing down on to the shallow sand bar behind Whale Cay, reeking havoc on running gear and even ones hull. It is an area to be avoided in such conditions. Just the same, and the south end of Whale Cay in an area known as Bakers Bay, Disney would moor their Red cruise ships and tender folks to their "Out Island Home" on Guana Cay. It didn't take long for Disney to realize their mistake, having to deal with often treacherous anchoring conditions in the area and pulled anchor for good and moved their island sanctuary to Gorda Cay, now called Castaway Island. There is many a tale to be told of vessels of all types meeting their doom in the "Infamous Whale Cay Passage".+

An additional feature of the rage is where water is pushed into the shallow Sea of Abaco until the water level is slightly higher than than the much deeper ocean, particularly on a rising tide, only to turn around and rush back into the ocean against the large swells creating really large and quite dangerous waves at the inlets.

Coming into and out of the Sea of Abaco must be timed with the sea conditions of the inlets. Every morning on the marine channel 68 at 8:15am is the Cruisers Net for local information including weather and passage conditions through the various inlets. The local favorite is barometerbob which gives weather and sea conditions for the Sea of Abaco.