Great Harbour Cay
Greetings from windy Great Harbour Cay where we arrived on Thursday, January 2. We had a beautiful 11 hour crossing from Bimini. It was breathtaking to be out in the ocean, cruising along at turtle speed with rarely another boat in site and no land to be seen.
Leaving Bimini.
Arriving Bullocks Harbour.
Many years ago we took a Royal Caribbean Cruise with the whole Zuskin family. One of the stops was on Coco Cay which is Little Stirrup Cay, a cay that the cruise line leases from the Bahamas. We could see the cruise ships and hear the captains on the radio. I thought it was pretty cool. I have a wonderful memory of the first cousins playing on the beach that day!
We ran out of sunlight about an hour before we arrived at the anchorage.
I can now say we are no longer anchoring in the dark virgins. We anchored on the west side of the Cay at Bullock’s Harbor for two nights. It’s ironic that its called harbor because there really isn’t a harbor. There is protection from east winds but otherwise it’s pretty exposed.
Big winds were coming so we cruised on our dinghy into the marina to see if we could get a slip. Good thing we had Aquamaps (navigation program) on Eddie’s phone or we would have missed the cut into Bay of the 5 Pirates. The cut was sandblasted about 60 years ago to give access to this bay. It is pretty narrow with cliffs on both sides and then once into the bay it is hilly with homes and trees all around. I’m so glad we did reconnaissance with the dinghy before we moved Seaquel!
At the marina.
Turns out with the predicted winds there was no room at the marina. I couldn't be happier as I prefer the hook! Instead we anchored in the Bay of the 5 Pirates with about 10 other boats, all sails and cats. It is reported to be one of the best hurricane holes in the Bahamas and securely anchored for the 20 mph winds with gusts to 25.
The thing I have noticed about the Bay is that it appears to change colors throughout the day. Sometimes it looks light blue - that Bahama blue color, other times it is a deep green and sometimes it’s a pretty aquamarine/turquoise color.
We have decided to stay put through the end of the week. The winds are calm yesterday and today picking back up tomorrow through the weekend.
Yesterday’s adventures included a dinghy ride to the airplane wreck snorkel sight, finding the Blue Hole near Rat’s Cay and lifting the dinghy with the newly installed transom davits instead of by the flybridge winch.
We were able to snorkel the plane wreck. Good thing we were told it was a single engine plane as it was super hard to tell that on site. The water was calm so snorkeling was easy but brrr was it chilly and visibility wasn’t great. We didn’t last too long in the water, long enough to figure out neither of us can see the go pro screen in the water without glasses and that for me it was hard as hell to get back aboard the dinghy from the water. I’m so glad the video camera wasn’t rolling then. I’m sure it was not a very graceful entry!!!
After the plane wreck we traveled to the nearby Blue Hole. ”A blue hole is a large marine cavern or sinkhole, which is open to the surface and has developed in a bank or island composed of a carbonate bedrock (limestone or coral reef). Blue holes typically contain tidally influenced water of fresh, marine, or mixed chemistry.” (Wikipedia) Normally we would have loved to jump in and snorkel or scuba but we were too cold! Instead we sat over the Blue Hole, in the sun and tried to get warm. Concluded our dinghy tour with a stop on a near by beach. Sadly we dubbed it trash beach. I sunbathed in the dinghy and Eddie walked ashore and was reporting back all the different trash - a fire extinguisher, whiskey bottle, a woman’s shoe, 2 buckets with lids for Deb, brightly colored fishing net, a bag filled with foam and a skeleton of an inflatable dinghy!
The dinghy on the davits! The story continues. Eddie has worked very hard to install beautiful new davits on the boat. I’d say it has been at least a year long, work on it on and off project. In the fall we tried to lift the 350 pound dinghy onto the davits and the whole transom was flexing. This is after Eddie spent time reinforcing the transom. At the Annapolis boat show he talked to the dealer and we bought additional support to go from the swim platform to the davits and also a hand winch. Well yesterday all was installed, tightened and ready for the test lift. Holy moly!!!! It was so heavy, I couldn’t lift my side which was supposed to be the easier side because of the winch. Finally, I gave up, feeling like a weakling! Lo and behold, Eddie couldn’t lift it either. Of course that made me feel a little better! We attached our electric flybridge winch and lifted the dinghy into place. More emails to the company to find out if we are doing something wrong.
And that about brings you up to date.
Today’s plan, bring our bicycles to shore and explore the island and the local Tuesday night fish fry this evening.
Disclaimer - It is now Saturday! I was having trouble uploading pics to the blog but everything seems cool today.
We are still in Great Harbour, still waiting out the winds. It’s soooo windy. I just tried to type with the iPad in a keyboard, on the flybridge and the wind kept blowing the iPad down. Now, I’m sitting in the pilot house!
So Since Monday we have had adventures! On Tuesday my energizer bunny husband dropped our bikes off the fly bridge and we loaded them onto the dinghy. From there we took the dinghy into the marina, tied to a small floating dock and climbed up onto the real dock where that energizer bunny lifted our bikes up and onto the dock. My hero!!!
We rode our bikes around the island to Shell Beach. I had heard it’s a flat island. Ummm, not so much! Up and down some hills, rode in the sand a bit and wow, what a gorgeous site at Shell Beach. It was super shallow so were able to walk out pretty far in like 4-6” of water and sit for a spell on a sand bar. We took a bunch of video but it doesn’t want to load into the blog and I have not figured out how to edit it for posting. Working on it!
Afterwards we rode into the Village where we checked out the grocery store. The “boat” had just come in so there was lots of activity at the store, stocking the shelves and locals buying groceries. Truthfully, I don’t know how they do it - everything was super expensive. Eddie bough a loaf of Bahamian sweet bread (which turned out to be challah) and 2 large carrots - $6!
The goal was to head to the Tuesday night Fish Fry for dinner. We arrived at he restaurant and it was closed up tight. OK, skip that, we will stop on the road for conch salad. LoL The guy at the conch stand said I am busy as I have a party tonight, I won’t be able to prepare anything for you for 3 hours! Poor Eddie - he was disappointed. Back to the boat we went for leftovers!
We had a couple of days of laying low. These winds are wild. Gusting to 35 knots. Our super protected anchorage has white caps and the reports off shore on the Atlantic side of the island include seas up to 12’. So we wait for better weather to travel. Read, do boat projects, surf the internet etc.
In the meanwhile we made friends with the couple on the catamaran, Yinsanity, next to us. Jacqui and Mike spent 2 years traveling the United States, living in hotels and touring National Parks. While they were in Hawaii they went on a catamaran sail and that clinched it for them. They came home, took a 7 day sailing class and bought a catamaran. They have been living on it and sailing ever since! So brave!!!
Yesterday we picked Jacqui up on our dinghy and went to shore back to the grocery store. We didn’t need anything but they did. We first tried to tie up in the mangroves and were going to have to climb over rocks to get to the road to walk to the store. Thank God there was another woman on board! Eddie had to relent that it wasn’t safe. We ended up going into a cove, finding a couple of guys on a trawler and asking if we could tie up to their swim platform. They were reluctant but eventually agreed. It was worth their while as we returned with a bottle of rum to say thank you!
Later in the late afternoon, I had just gotten out of the shower and Eddie was shaving when Yinsanity was calling us on the radio. Turns out they thought someone was stranded in their dinghy and since our dinghy was dropped off Eddie and Mike went to rescue these two salty characters from North Carolina. Their engine had gone kaput and they were stuck.
Then last night Jacqui, Mike and Eddie and I took the dinghy into the marina for the local Chill and Grill dinner. Yummy barbecue with folks from the marina and locals. We ended up meeting a couple, Linda and Tom on a beautiful sail cat who have cruised all over the Bahamas. I asked about their favorite anchorages in the Out Islands and proceeded to take notes on anchorages we will try to visit. They are headed to Panama. And drum roll please! Linda and Tom are our heroes.
It turns out we needed a hand winch handle to be able to crank and lift the engine side of the dinghy onto the davits. We had borrowed one from Mike to try it out. Worked great. There are no Amazon deliveries here so we figured we’d need to go to Nassau to buy one in order to have the davits working. How grateful are we, Linda and Tom insisted that we take one of their extra ones instead. Davits now working great!
Jacqui and Mike on the left. Linda and Tom on the right aboard their beautiful boat Toucan.
Many years ago we took a Royal Caribbean Cruise with the whole Zuskin family. One of the stops was on Coco Cay which is Little Stirrup Cay, a cay that the cruise line leases from the Bahamas. We could see the cruise ships and hear the captains on the radio. I thought it was pretty cool. I have a wonderful memory of the first cousins playing on the beach that day!
I can now say we are no longer anchoring in the dark virgins. We anchored on the west side of the Cay at Bullock’s Harbor for two nights. It’s ironic that its called harbor because there really isn’t a harbor. There is protection from east winds but otherwise it’s pretty exposed.
Big winds were coming so we cruised on our dinghy into the marina to see if we could get a slip. Good thing we had Aquamaps (navigation program) on Eddie’s phone or we would have missed the cut into Bay of the 5 Pirates. The cut was sandblasted about 60 years ago to give access to this bay. It is pretty narrow with cliffs on both sides and then once into the bay it is hilly with homes and trees all around. I’m so glad we did reconnaissance with the dinghy before we moved Seaquel!
Turns out with the predicted winds there was no room at the marina. I couldn't be happier as I prefer the hook! Instead we anchored in the Bay of the 5 Pirates with about 10 other boats, all sails and cats. It is reported to be one of the best hurricane holes in the Bahamas and securely anchored for the 20 mph winds with gusts to 25.
The thing I have noticed about the Bay is that it appears to change colors throughout the day. Sometimes it looks light blue - that Bahama blue color, other times it is a deep green and sometimes it’s a pretty aquamarine/turquoise color.
We have decided to stay put through the end of the week. The winds are calm yesterday and today picking back up tomorrow through the weekend.
Yesterday’s adventures included a dinghy ride to the airplane wreck snorkel sight, finding the Blue Hole near Rat’s Cay and lifting the dinghy with the newly installed transom davits instead of by the flybridge winch.
We were able to snorkel the plane wreck. Good thing we were told it was a single engine plane as it was super hard to tell that on site. The water was calm so snorkeling was easy but brrr was it chilly and visibility wasn’t great. We didn’t last too long in the water, long enough to figure out neither of us can see the go pro screen in the water without glasses and that for me it was hard as hell to get back aboard the dinghy from the water. I’m so glad the video camera wasn’t rolling then. I’m sure it was not a very graceful entry!!!
After the plane wreck we traveled to the nearby Blue Hole. ”A blue hole is a large marine cavern or sinkhole, which is open to the surface and has developed in a bank or island composed of a carbonate bedrock (limestone or coral reef). Blue holes typically contain tidally influenced water of fresh, marine, or mixed chemistry.” (Wikipedia) Normally we would have loved to jump in and snorkel or scuba but we were too cold! Instead we sat over the Blue Hole, in the sun and tried to get warm. Concluded our dinghy tour with a stop on a near by beach. Sadly we dubbed it trash beach. I sunbathed in the dinghy and Eddie walked ashore and was reporting back all the different trash - a fire extinguisher, whiskey bottle, a woman’s shoe, 2 buckets with lids for Deb, brightly colored fishing net, a bag filled with foam and a skeleton of an inflatable dinghy!
The dinghy on the davits! The story continues. Eddie has worked very hard to install beautiful new davits on the boat. I’d say it has been at least a year long, work on it on and off project. In the fall we tried to lift the 350 pound dinghy onto the davits and the whole transom was flexing. This is after Eddie spent time reinforcing the transom. At the Annapolis boat show he talked to the dealer and we bought additional support to go from the swim platform to the davits and also a hand winch. Well yesterday all was installed, tightened and ready for the test lift. Holy moly!!!! It was so heavy, I couldn’t lift my side which was supposed to be the easier side because of the winch. Finally, I gave up, feeling like a weakling! Lo and behold, Eddie couldn’t lift it either. Of course that made me feel a little better! We attached our electric flybridge winch and lifted the dinghy into place. More emails to the company to find out if we are doing something wrong.
And that about brings you up to date.
Today’s plan, bring our bicycles to shore and explore the island and the local Tuesday night fish fry this evening.
Disclaimer - It is now Saturday! I was having trouble uploading pics to the blog but everything seems cool today.
We are still in Great Harbour, still waiting out the winds. It’s soooo windy. I just tried to type with the iPad in a keyboard, on the flybridge and the wind kept blowing the iPad down. Now, I’m sitting in the pilot house!
So Since Monday we have had adventures! On Tuesday my energizer bunny husband dropped our bikes off the fly bridge and we loaded them onto the dinghy. From there we took the dinghy into the marina, tied to a small floating dock and climbed up onto the real dock where that energizer bunny lifted our bikes up and onto the dock. My hero!!!
We rode our bikes around the island to Shell Beach. I had heard it’s a flat island. Ummm, not so much! Up and down some hills, rode in the sand a bit and wow, what a gorgeous site at Shell Beach. It was super shallow so were able to walk out pretty far in like 4-6” of water and sit for a spell on a sand bar. We took a bunch of video but it doesn’t want to load into the blog and I have not figured out how to edit it for posting. Working on it!
Afterwards we rode into the Village where we checked out the grocery store. The “boat” had just come in so there was lots of activity at the store, stocking the shelves and locals buying groceries. Truthfully, I don’t know how they do it - everything was super expensive. Eddie bough a loaf of Bahamian sweet bread (which turned out to be challah) and 2 large carrots - $6!
The goal was to head to the Tuesday night Fish Fry for dinner. We arrived at he restaurant and it was closed up tight. OK, skip that, we will stop on the road for conch salad. LoL The guy at the conch stand said I am busy as I have a party tonight, I won’t be able to prepare anything for you for 3 hours! Poor Eddie - he was disappointed. Back to the boat we went for leftovers!
We had a couple of days of laying low. These winds are wild. Gusting to 35 knots. Our super protected anchorage has white caps and the reports off shore on the Atlantic side of the island include seas up to 12’. So we wait for better weather to travel. Read, do boat projects, surf the internet etc.
In the meanwhile we made friends with the couple on the catamaran, Yinsanity, next to us. Jacqui and Mike spent 2 years traveling the United States, living in hotels and touring National Parks. While they were in Hawaii they went on a catamaran sail and that clinched it for them. They came home, took a 7 day sailing class and bought a catamaran. They have been living on it and sailing ever since! So brave!!!
Yesterday we picked Jacqui up on our dinghy and went to shore back to the grocery store. We didn’t need anything but they did. We first tried to tie up in the mangroves and were going to have to climb over rocks to get to the road to walk to the store. Thank God there was another woman on board! Eddie had to relent that it wasn’t safe. We ended up going into a cove, finding a couple of guys on a trawler and asking if we could tie up to their swim platform. They were reluctant but eventually agreed. It was worth their while as we returned with a bottle of rum to say thank you!
Later in the late afternoon, I had just gotten out of the shower and Eddie was shaving when Yinsanity was calling us on the radio. Turns out they thought someone was stranded in their dinghy and since our dinghy was dropped off Eddie and Mike went to rescue these two salty characters from North Carolina. Their engine had gone kaput and they were stuck.
Then last night Jacqui, Mike and Eddie and I took the dinghy into the marina for the local Chill and Grill dinner. Yummy barbecue with folks from the marina and locals. We ended up meeting a couple, Linda and Tom on a beautiful sail cat who have cruised all over the Bahamas. I asked about their favorite anchorages in the Out Islands and proceeded to take notes on anchorages we will try to visit. They are headed to Panama. And drum roll please! Linda and Tom are our heroes.
It turns out we needed a hand winch handle to be able to crank and lift the engine side of the dinghy onto the davits. We had borrowed one from Mike to try it out. Worked great. There are no Amazon deliveries here so we figured we’d need to go to Nassau to buy one in order to have the davits working. How grateful are we, Linda and Tom insisted that we take one of their extra ones instead. Davits now working great!
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