Not a lot of places can claim to be truly “unique”, and actually one of a kind. Our current location, Hogsty Reef, is one of those. It is the only official atoll in the Atlantic Ocean. It has been on my list of places to see for some time, but to visit the weather has to be pretty stable and cooperative. Finally on this trip, we got here.

Our trip here from Great Inagua was straightforward, and uneventful. 45 miles in 8 hours, mostly motor sailing through somewhat contrary winds.

An atoll is a central lagoon surrounded by a coral barrier reef. In the Pacific Ocean atolls are more common and are most commonly produced when a volcanic island sinks beneath the waves, and the coral grows faster than the land subsides, leaving a ring of coral around a lagoon. Hogsty Reef has a different origin story. A couple dozen feet higher, and it would have been a typical Bahamian Island, but as the water levels rose after the last ice age, the upper surface ended up below sea level, and the coral grew in a ring of reefs around the submerged land in the middle creating a lagoon about 4 miles across.

A least one blogger has pronounced it as “the most isolated place in the Bahamas!” Nice headline, but not true. It is only 35 miles from two other islands, and there are Bahamian islands with more space around them than that. But is does FEEL remote for sure, and visits are rare.

There are two “permanent” patches of land, Northwest Cay, and Southwest Cay. We are currently anchored off the larger of the two, Northwest Cay.

We will not be going ashore here because the terns are still nesting on the island. Certainly one of the smallest places we have ever anchored at. This is also a marine protected area so we will not be fishing or collecting here.

If the weather holds as forecast, we will be spending another day or two here, and hopefully have a chance to get you some more photos from above and underwater.