NEWS 9 Nov 2009

The Abacos are famous for turtles. Over the years Thomas Bethel of Hope Town and others have tagged a lot of turtles in the Abacos for the Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research, but most of the work has been south of Green Turtle Cay or around Little Abaco. This seemed a good year to survey the northern cays to identify the principle green turtle feeding habitats, check for the presence of fibropapillomas, and look for small loggerheads. Beside, I had never been north of Lynyard Cay.

Phil Allen, an old Newport friend, and I arrived on board FOXY LADY in Spanish Wells October 16th and hustled to get underway before the arrival of the next cold front. We cleared Ridley’s Head by 0950 the next morning and steamed up to Abaco in beautiful weather. We anchored in the Bight of Old Robinson in time for a quick tour of Little Harbour (which was loaded with green turtles) and an early supper. At 2300 a squall hit with 40 knot gusts, pouring rain, and lightning all around the boat. That was the beginning of a week of bad weather.

The next morning there was nothing for it but to head up to the anchorage in Marsh Harbour. Fortunately we were welcomed to there by Carol and Robby Robinson who had already been in the Abacos aboard ARETE for a couple of weeks. Robby and I are both retired school masters who sailed together many years ago. We all hunkered down and became residents of Marsh Harbour. The weather stayed miserable right up to Phil’s early morning departure on Thursday the 22nd, so Phil never got a day of “brochure vacation,” nor did he tag a turtle.

ARETE at Anchor

After Phil had left, I walked inland to see Kristin Williams, Director of Friends of the Environment. Friends is doing an outstanding job of protecting the environment in Abaco and educating students and adults about environmental stewardship. Kristin put me in touch with several people who helped us along the way.

Friday morning, I met with David Knowles, the BNT Park Warden for Abaco. The Trust consistently hires people who are dedicated and competent. I spent several hours with David talking about his work and the condition of the fisheries and agriculture in the Abacos.

On Sunday, Tevin Williams and Alex Henderson arrived from Nassau. David Knowles drove the boys from the airport and picked up Kentucky Fried on the way. The boys were joining the boat for the two week research cruise to the northern cays.

Both boys have BESS scholarships (The Island School's Bahamas Environmental Steward Scholarships). BESS Award recipients participate in a 14-week course at the Island School in Cape Eleuthera and a 6 month internship at a conservation minded organization in The Bahamas. This fall Alex was working as an intern with the Bahamas National Trust, and Tevin was working with BREEF. For information about the BESS scholarship program go to www.islandschool.org or www.breef.org.

By noon the next day we were underway to anchor between Guana and Scotland cays where Susan Roberts (a marine artist –www.turtlelady.com) had said there were turtles. Carol and Robby Robinson joined us. We spoke to some local residents who said they see one or two green turtles every day. There is a grass flat between the cays and a channel out to the east, and there are indeed several green turtles living there. We caught 3 greens and showed the residents and their guests how we tag the turtles.

                                                    Tevin and Alex Release a Green Turtle

In the late afternoon ERETE and FOXY LADY moved to Fisher’s Bay. Then we ran the speed boat up to Joe’s Creek, an extensive mangrove creek, the major part of which has been destroyed by the Baker’s Bay development. We motored into the Baker’s Bay marina. So far, the development has a couple of large buildings and empty slips for 200 phantom boats. There was strong local opposition to the project which has had a sad history. Now there are new owners and new promises. Does anyone want to bet another real estate development will fail in the Bahamas? Baker’s Bay is a landlocked harbour to keep in mind in hurricane season.

The next morning we ran north through Whale Cay Channel to moor in Manjack Cay alongside Bob Gascoin and Jane Minty who make the Wavey Line charts. We jumped right in the speed boat and caught two green turtles in the anchorage before the Robinsons arrived. At 1500 Bill Herrington, a long-time resident of Manjack Cay, showed us through Nunjack Creek on the high tide. Even in the late afternoon light, we saw several green turtles, and Bill said that in the last few years the creek had gone from no turtles to numerous. That is now the good news in many of the mangrove creeks where the local fishermen have stopped taking turtles.

On 28 October we ran down to Green Turtle Cay and caught two green turtles in Cocoa Bay. A local man told us there are no turtles in White Sound, but we saw several in the cove on the west side of No Name. By 1315 we were up in Nunjack Harbour and had caught a small green. There were several more turtles in the harbour, but most were in murky water, so it seemed prudent to go up to the clearer part of the creek to catch a sample large enough to check for fibropapillomas.

The light was good, so we were able to work reasonably well, despite the limited maneuverability of the speed boat in the narrow creek. Tevin was getting very good at spotting the turtles, and Alex was getting very good at catching them. We caught 4 greens and 1 hawksbill. The light was gone before we could make it into the small lagoon where Bill sees the most turtles. None of the turtles we caught was infected.

The next morning we anchored at Powell Cay and ran the speed boat ten miles up to the creek in the south end of Pensacola Cay. The creek is another hurricane hole to remember if you draw 5’ or less. The water and the bottom of that creek are dark brown with tannin from the mangroves. We had a tough time following the turtles, but at local noon the light was sufficient to catch the three green turtles shown below. When the light was gone, we ran back to Powell Cay to dive the east side for conch. With the Robinsons we took six broadlips in a healthy conch bed. Then we ran up to Spanish Cay for gas and diesel and back to Powell Cay to knock out the conch for a conch salad. It was a great day and a lovely last evening with the Robinsons who had to start heading back south.

Beautiful Patterns on Pensacola Creek

Carters Cays is an island group with no permanent citizens, but fishermen from several settlements go there to fish. Many of the men live in shacks and in the old missile tracking station buildings ashore. The shallow anchorage outside the main current is good for most winds, and the boats can shift to other anchorages if necessary.

We anchored at the SE corner of Old Yankee Cay, in good bottom just out of the current. Then we circumnavigated Old Yankee and caught one small (24.8 cm) green in the narrow creek running east from Hogstye Harbour. We had only seen two turtles, so we ran around to the anchorage to talk to the fishermen who told us about turtles in the cove around the corner of Carters Cay. The light and the tide were low, and the water was murky, so it was a struggle just to get in and out of the cove; but we saw three turtles blow. The eastern part of the cove was loaded with cormorants and dozens of nests.

Cormorants Nesting

By 1030 the next morning we had two anchors down in Grand Cays and were in the speed boat. We looked in the obvious places in Grand Cays but saw no turtles, so we ran over to Double Breasted Cays which is a cluster of long thin cays forming a good anchorage, a large mangrove creek, and areas of shallow flats. The tide was too low for us to do anything in the creek. We had to go overboard and push the boat in and out when we tried.

But the deeper channels had large green turtles. Alex caught the three that we chased, but the water wasn’t quite clear enough for us to keep up with the small ones.

Walker’s Cay, which used to be the best sport fishing destination in the northern Bahamas, is now closed, so Grand Cays has grown in importance. The community of 500 souls is supported by fishing. At least 10 small boats leave the harbour every morning to go for crawfish, grouper, and conch. There are several fishing guides who take customers out for bonefish or work on the big sport boats that arrive in the late spring and summer.

After a flat calm night of sand flies and little sleep, Sunday was a day off, so we went ashore to meet Marcel “Prince” Russell (the head bonefish guide) who is obviously a capable man. He said turtles around Grand Cays are scarce. He said north of Walker’s Cay in the grass and coral there are occasional large greens and small to medium loggerheads. Marcel often sees growths on the loggerheads but never on the greens. We should return someday soon to investigate the loggerheads. Prince said the place to go for turtles was Great Sale Cay in the sailboat anchorage.

“SuperK,” Marcel’s brother, then took us to meet the all-age school Principal, Suresh Seeram, who invited us to give presentations in his school Monday morning.

In contrast to most of the settlement in Grand Cays, the school is clean and well maintained. We met Mr. Seeram at 0900 to set up for our presentations. The boys talked about the Island School and the BESS scholarship program, and generated a lot of interest from the older students. I gave a lecture on the life history of sea turtles and our research. All the students were enthusiastic and asked excellent questions. I would have been happy to spend a week teaching in the school.

Grand Cays All-Age School

“Super K” attended our presentations and later produced a turtle tag (#BP5387) that he had collected from another fisherman in August. It was a hawksbill “big enough to eat,” caught between Grand Cays and Walker’s Cay. I notified the ACCSTR, and Peter Eliazar informed me that I had tagged that same hawksbill on the east side of Conception on 26 March 2001. It was good to receive the tag, but outrageous that the anonymous fisherman had killed a hawksbill. We have had very few tag returns from hawksbill, and this is the first hawksbill I can remember that we know migrated a significant distance within the Bahamas.

After chatting with Kennedy, we fueled the speed boat and were underway before noon for Great Sale Cay where we tagged one green in the late afternoon and saw several bonnet head sharks. As Marcel had promised, Northwest Harbour had plenty of turtles and fish.

The forecast predicted that the good weather would end soon, so at 0830 the next morning we were in the small boat headed for Curry Creek on the northwest side of Sale Cay where we saw six tarpon, 4 big bonefish, and one turtle. To take advantage of the last of the weather, we headed back to Northwest Harbour to concentrate our efforts. From 1000 until 1430 we chased turtles and missed a lot because of the glare and the dark bottom, but we tagged 1 loggerhead, 1 hawksbill, and 8 greens – still no fibropapillomas. I cannot remember seeing a more active habitat. There were fish working all around us and plenty of birds and turtles.

During the night, the weather deteriorated, so we got underway for West End early on November 4th. In West End we fueled, cleaned the boats, washed the laundry, and treated ourselves to supper at Bonefish Folley’s. We also rode bikes around the resort – both the finished marina complex and the expanse of land that had been denuded in preparation for a new golf course and a hotel development that may never happen. Bankruptcy looks imminent.

Following are Tevin and Alex’s remarks about what they saw on our bike tour of Old Bahama Bay:

"The development of Old Bahama Bay is, least to say, a sport fisherman’s paradise with a great marina just 62 miles off the coast of Florida. This resort is fully equipped with private lots with docks, a fitness centre and restaurants. However, this is only a small portion of the 1900 acres.During the expansion of the resort native trees and land have been destroyed, not to mention the new harbour they dug out. The natural shrubbery of the entire area was flattened to make room for the golf course that they are constructing. We are not against the idea of development, any country needs it. Look how Atlantis has economically transformed New Providence. But it must succeed. There are too many failed projects in The Bahamas where land has been completely destroyed in vain and the lots remain empty for years. This not only effects the environment but the economy with the loss of all the money."

Tevin also made a very interesting comment about developments. He said that residential developments should be designed to attract Bahamians, not just foreigners. Developments that have proven longevity as Lyford Cay have a high percentage of Bahamian ownership.

The next day we left early to enter the Running Mon channel at high tide and moor at the home of Karin and Al Sanchez. Karin is the head of the Grand Bahama Regional Branch of the Bahamas National Trust. She and her family are generous hosts.

Neither of the boys had ever been to Grand Bahama, so we rented a car and hit the road. We met with Cecelia Bodie and toured the Rand Nature Center, then drove to the Lucayan National Park, walked the paths, inspected the caves, and read all the informative signs in the mangroves on the way to Golden Cay Beach. We had not expected to see so many people using the beach. It is always wonderful to see an active park.

So the boys could see both ends of the island, we drove on to McLean’s, one of my favorite places. Three years ago I spent 10 days tagging turtles out of Deep Water Cay with Randy Reckley, a bonefish guide from McLean’s.

Early Saturday morning we were all up at 0530 to drive to the airport so the boys could catch the 0700 Bahamas Air flight back to Nassau. They had been a great help and wonderful ambassadors for the Trust and BREEF.

SUMMARY:

We made a fast survey of the major green turtle habitats in the northern Abaco cays. Several of these, such as Double Breasted Cays and Great Sale Cay, should be investigated at least once a year for long term demographic studies. The local people were very helpful, and it was clear that they all knew about the recent ban on the harvest of turtles. We saw no sign of fibropapillomas in green turtles, though we heard of what might be the presence of fibropapillomas in loggerheads. Anecdotal evidence from expatriates and local fishermen suggest that the populations of juvenile green turtles have increased significantly in the last few years. Increased protection of populations throughout the Caribbean and decreasing harvest in the Bahamas are producing results.

“Super K” Russell returned a tag that showed movement of a hawksbill turtle from Conception Island (March 2001) to Grand Cays (Aug 2009).

TOTAL TAGGED:
27 green
2 hawksbill
1 loggerhead