Braving the Infamous Devils Backbone

On March 18th, we sailed from Mutton Fish Point through Current Cut to Meek’s Patch, a small island south of Spanish Wells. We had heard it was a great place to snorkel and that may be true but we weren’t willing to risk decapitation to find out. Small tour boats raced back and forth between the anchored boats and the shoreline; apparently there is a pig beach on Meek’s Patch.

It had been several days since we had provisioned and we needed fuel and water. We decide to dinghy into Spanish Wells. With the chop and the wind, it turned out to be a 20-minute dinghy ride to the channel entrance. Our first impression was clouded by the overwhelm of activity all around us. It was a bustling fishing and industrial community. The fishing community gained wealth through its success in lobster harvesting and continued to make a name for themselves in boatbuilding and marine services.

The first stop was for fuel at Spanish Wells Marine & Hardware.

The pier was fixed and it was low tide therefore I stayed in the boat; otherwise, I think Blake would have had to rig up some pully system to get me up there. These piers were not designed for dinghies; not even the one that is designated for dinghies…and there is only one.

We tied up to said dinghy dock in front of Pinders Super Market, a small grocery store that is owned by a family that apparently owns nearly all of Spanish Wells. As we walked around, we noticed we were surrounded by white people, and later learned that this island was settled by English Puritans, known as Eleutheran Adventurers, that sailed from Bermuda for religious freedom and later joined by Loyalists shirking the American Revolution. These families have been here for generations and there are very few surnames outside of Pinder. When you google Spanish Wells, it is inevitable that incest will be a leading googled topic. I have no evidence to substantiate the prevalence of incestual relations and will continue to hope that is not common practice.

I would not describe Spanish Wells as a tourist town by any means but for cruisers, it’s a great stop for resources. The larger grocery store, Spanish Wells Food Fair, is a bit of a hike from the dinghy dock.

It was a scorcher that day and fortunately we stumbled upon Papa’s Scoops for some ice cream. Unfortunately, Papa’s Scoops is only open 7pm – 10pm on Saturday and Sunday. Papa, why have you forsaken us? In a place where the sun is out 95% of the time, this seems unusually malicious.

There is an app we use called Navionics with a component called Active Captain, that allows fellow cruisers to leave reviews and recommendations on anchorages, marinas, restaurants, etc. Everyone was raving about Budda’s Snack Shack. The kitchen is an old school bus that has been painted vividly and behind it is a bar and a covered patio.

The food was mediocre at best; for example, my house salad was iceberg lettuce, shaved carrots and sliced onions. When I asked about the spring rolls, they said they come to them premade so they don’t know what’s in them. My point being, the food was meh. There were some kids running around that were so sweet and one little girl took a fancy to Blake.

Our experience of Spanish Wells concluded with getting some R/O drinking water from Ronald’s Service Center before making our way to Gun Point Cay to stage for the Devil’s Backbone. In the Explorer Chart and on FB forums, there was a strong recommendation to hire a pilot from Spanish Wells to guide you through the Devil’s Backbone. Blake and I had spent two days following other boats on AIS traverse the backbone by strictly following the rhumb line on the Explorer Charts, meaning we decided to wait for a calm, clear day with wind from the S – SE, and traverse it ourselves.

I said it in a Facebook post but I’ll say it again, I really wish someone would have asked where I was when anchored at Gun Point Cay so I could respond, “I’m at gunpoint.” To be clear, this is the only circumstance I would want to respond in this way. We went through the Spanish Wells channel and dropped the anchor about 150 feet from a sunken boat that resembled a sea monster at sunset.

While here a pod of eight dolphins swam up to our boat. We took that as a sign of future good fortune for the following day.

We woke up and had a hardy breakfast as we awaited the rising tide to safely navigate the infamous two-mile stretch of the shallow, jagged edge reefs and shifting sand shoals, known as the Devil’s Backbone. Word on the street is that the Devil’s Backbone has ripped the bottom out of more vessels than any other reef in the country. It’s known as a great place to dive because of the collection of sunken ships, from The William that was wrecked in 1648 to the Vanaheim, wrecked in 1969, with several ships in between.

My role was to be on the bow, looking ahead for shallow coral heads, and Blake was at the helm with the chart following the rhumb line on the Explorer chart.

I was not prepared for the wake from the ferry boats and mega yachts plowing through the backbone and a few times found myself crouched down, white knuckling the bow sprit. Before we knew it, we were through it. We don’t have pictures because other than boat wake, it was extremely uneventful. It kinda makes you wonder if the whole thing is played up to keep the local pilot boats in business. Anyway, we made it through unscathed and feel like we deserve a t-shirt or something.

As we sail by Harbour Island, it looks like any other Bahamian island, with the exception of two things; the concentration of big, shiny, mega yachts and luxurious homes.

We could count the number of anchored sailboats on one hand. We had inquired about the cost of reserving a slip at the three marinas and each one quoted us $5 per foot per night, which comes out to $190 per night. Needless to say, we dropped the hook in Mastic Bay, the south end of Harbour Island, on March 20th, in between a catamaran and a small boat mooring field. You can’t help but feel a bit like riff raff in a place like this; a humbling and extremely uncomfortable feeling. Well uncomfortable for me; Blake is not phased by much and that’s what I love about him!