Wild Waves

There has been a huge ocean swell affecting the Bahamas the past several days, causing all the cuts to the Sea of Abaco to have rages in them. It has been quite dynamic with 16 foot seas hitting the reef, sending up spumes of spray 40 feet high in places. Many people have said that they have never seen the ocean do this, even during hurricanes. I walked down to the landing craft landing on the Sea of Abaco this morning and stood there for a long time getting mesmerized by all those waves breaking.

(Those people out in their little skiffs were crazy!)

A couple of days ago, Dave, Ken, and I went to Man- O-War Cay in Walkabout and we knew it would be a bit rough in the Sea of Abaco, especially by the South MOW channel. It wasn't quite as bad as we thought it would be because the ocean reef was breaking up the major part of the swell and waves. What we didn't expect was that the waves built again after the reef and were breaking on the sandbar that is actually inside the several small barrier islands called Johnny's Cays. We've never seen this before, and the water is about 3-5 ft. deep on the bar, so normally we cut right across it instead of going around it. I thought it was an optical illusion at first and kept telling the guys I saw breaking waves. They thought I was crazy until THEY saw it happen. Naturally we took the long way around.

One of our friends Amy, sent this photo from down at the Abaco Inn towards the southern end of Elbow Cay. The waves don't look quite that large, however you will notice that the pool is filled to the brim because when the tide was up, the waves filled it up with seawater.

It's not just Abaco that is experiencing this phenomenon. Over in Eleuthera, the famous glass window bridge that was built over the cut where the ocean meets the bay, has been closed due to high waves. People have been swept off the bridge and cliffs. Click HERE for an article and video of what it has been like there. Below is the photo from the bottom of this blog page that I just remembered was taken several years ago right on the glass window bridge with the cliff in the background! Dave just read that they will now be using ferries to get past this cut.

After this is all over and the sea calms down, we will have to walk to the beach and see how much is left after all the erosion from pounding surf. Another friend, Sunny, posted this on Facebook, "whoever took our beach, would they please return it?"