Little Harbor

Feb. 9, 10, 11


We woke fairly early since the nighttime was windy and we were rocking and rolling. The wind had clocked from SW to NNE so we had more surge protection from Lynyard Cay but the wind was still blowing 15-20. We sat in the cockpit with coffee and watched 10 sailboats leave our anchorage and Little Harbor headed out the cut and heading south to Eleuthra Island. It was a great day for them to go since the wind was NNE with following waves of apx. 3-4’. All of a sudden we had the anchorage to ourselves with Hans and Gail. We did decide to move into Little Harbor at high tide. So the anchor was hauled at 8AM and we slowly followed Hans and Gail toward the Little Harbor entrance. It is a fully protected harbor but the entrance is narrow and you have to pass over a sandbar with only 3’ of water at low tide. High tide was at 8:58AM and we were entering by 8:30AM. Because of the full moon the tide was higher than usual so when m/v BadJaw crossed over they saw 8’ of water. We breathed a sigh of relief when we passed over the sand bar and still saw 2.5’ under our keel! We picked up one of their moorings (made from cement blocks and tires for floats) for $15 per night or $71 for the week. There are no services here for water, fuel, or electric, so you have to be pretty self reliant. There is Pete’s Pub where you can buy lunch or dinner or drown you sorrows at the bar. The little harbor has quite a few houses around it. We heard they only operate off wind and solar power but we can’t see the pub serving food without regular electricity. We found out that they cook with gas, really do use solar power with a back up generator. Most of their menu choices are fresh fish, delish, with a hamburger or chicken for an alternative.

Love Pete's Pub

Kinvara is in the center of 3 sailboats

The "old" dingy dock damaged during the hurricane

In a private yard

While waiting for lunch at the Pub we decided to walk around one side of the harbor to the outside beach. It was not low tide, however, so there was not much shell collecting to be done. We went into the art gallery and bought a book about the family who first inhabited Little Harbor (more later) and we bought t-shirts to remember our visit. In the afternoon we returned to our boat and read while Jane made blueberry cake. After going back ashore to pay for our mooring we stopped to visit Hans and Gail for a drink before retiring for the evening. Dinner was clam chowder and french bread since our lunch was so big.

One of Pete's cast bronze sculptures outside
the gallery

A prickly pear cactus with fruit.
Hans says you can eat this!

Overnight the wind continued clocking from NNE to E and staying 15-20 range. We decided to get our water maker up and running so Peter started our portable generator and Jane purged the system of storage fluid. We ran the water maker for 4 hours this morning and it worked perfectly! We usually have solar input of 11-12amps from the sun but today it is heavy overcast. Our wind generator cannot offset 4 hours of the water maker so the generator was able to charge the batteries while supplying power for the water maker. Little Harbor is a protected land and sea park and there are only 3 other boats in the harbor with people so we felt safe making water on the incoming tide. Afterwards we went ashore to walk our favorite beach again at low tide. When we returned to the dingy dock we saw a sailboat similar in size to ours which had grounded in the entrance to Little Harbor. We dingied out to them to see if there was anything we could do. There is always the chest constriction you feel, thinking, TG it’s not us!

Grounded in the channel

Since high tide was not until 9PM, after dark, we were pleasantly surprised to see them gone by 6:30