Mayaguana

Tags: Bahamas, Exumas, food, Mayaguana, sailing

Date: January 24, 2018

From Puerto Rico we sailed for three days non-stop to get to the Bahamas. We made landfall at Abraham's Bay on the island of Mayaguana. Only about 270 people live on the island. About half of the them in the Abraham's Bay settlement and the other half in Pirate's Well not too far away. We went ashore at the dock of Abraham's well:

The dock is a little away from the settlement and has a small pavilion and a large excavator next to a huge pile of sand:

This poster was placed in the main square of the settlement and announces the annual conch fest - from last year!

Also in the main square, the basketball court:

We had excellent internet while at Mayaguana. Here is the phone/internet tower on the road leading to the dock:

Here is the BTC (Bahamas Telephone Company) shop where we bought our data SIM card:

At the other end of town the paved road stopped but an unpaved trail went on and on:

A spider sitting in its net next to the trail:

Along the trail, some distance from the settlement was this unfinished house - huge with a view over the sea:

One of the locals told us that the reason why the house had never been finished was a dispute about ownership of the land on which the house is placed. Apparently the people building the house thought that the land was public land and when they found out that the land was actually privately owned they just abandoned the house.

We walked along the trail for about 8 km before turning around and walking back. At the top of this hill the ocean is visible in the distance:

While snorkeling around the boat, Bjarne found a very large and pretty-looking conch shell and brought it up on the boat. After a few moments we saw a tiny white arm with suction cups protruding from the shell and when we turned it around we found this:

A small octopus had made its home in the shell! After a while, the octopus looked like it might try to escape from the shell in search of water, so we hurriedly threw the shell back into the water. Here it is looking very keen to escape:

A funny looking evening sky just after sunset:

It looks like the rays from the sun below the horizon are visible as greenish-blue stripes in the orange-pink haze.

On the way from Mayaguana to Exuma we caught a nice bigeye tuna:

Seared tuna with pasta, carrot salad with sesame seeds and ponzu sauce: