We left Hope Town and had a lovely smooth crossing of The Whale passage to arrive at Great Guana Cay. It has a lovely harbor with lots of room to anchor.
The water is so clear you can see the bottom clearly.
Glenn and Lois on Ensenel arrived the day before and we dinghied in to shore to visit with them awhile before we explored the town on foot. It is a very small town, consisting of a few restaurants, 2 gift shops, and two dive shops. These were outside one of the dive shops – now I have a new adventure to think about in the future. Doesn’t this conjure up visions of 007 movies?
This bench was outside the dive shop – now don’t you want to go diving?
Yellow stop signs covered in stickers! –
BTW – we haven’t seen a stop light since we’ve been in the Bahamas – chickens yes, stop lights, no.
This form of tree decoration (flotsam) is quite popular over here.
That evening we had docktails on Gypsea’s Palace – a beautiful catamaran we hadn’t seen since last April,
then game night on our boat with Glenn and Lois, and Mike and Judy. We witnessed one of the prettiest sunsets together.
The next day begins 2 days of a local legend – Barefoot Man – performing at another local favorite – Nippers. It is a bar on the ocean side of the island.
There is a small inside bar/restaurant and many levels of decks outside along with a lovely swimming pool and gift shop. This is reported to be Barefoot Man’s next to last year performing and it is a well attended concert.
Barefoot Man’s band
The stores in the Bahamas have trouble with customers tracking in sand – one even posted a sign – “No sandy shoes”. Nippers solved the problem by using sand for the floor in their gift shop.
We quickly remembered why we don’t attend many concerts as the music is so loud it’s hard to hear yourself think let alone talk with your friends. We enjoyed “cracked conch” (deep friend battered conch), taking in several songs, “visiting” with some other Loopers we hadn’t seen for months, before throwing in the towel and heading back to the boat.
We weren’t the only ones who preferred the quiet of the water. This couple enjoyed a quiet dance on their boat.
An exquisite sunset to finish the day.
The next day we bid a temporary farewell to our friends and headed back to Manjack Cay to do some snorkeling. We went to the north side of the island this time in hopes of seeing the stingrays. There is only one other boat in the bay where we anchor. We had seen the colorful dinghy at Hope Town but not the boat. They must have had kids visiting and sleeping in the tent on top of the boat! Notice the Canadian flag on the back of the boat. It seems people in the Bahamas are either Canadian or from New England!
We swam to shore and took a short hike. The next day we planned to dinghy around the point to the next bay where the stingrays were usually seen but our smooth quiet water the day we arrived turned too choppy in the unexpected winds to try to get there. We spent a bumpy day on the boat. That night it was so calm you couldn’t see a ripple! Go figure!
The next day we stopped at No Name Cay on our way back to Green Turtle Cay. This beach is known for their swimming pigs. They are “wild” pigs but love the people who come feed them.
I took the warnings seriously and threw the pancakes (supposedly their favorite food – they leave the carrots and onions to rot in the sand) to them – not wanting their teeth too close to my fingers!
The babies were so cute, I tried to give them their fair share because the adults would charge in to take the food whenever possible and the poor babies would duck out of the way quickly.
After our fun feeding them, went on back to Green Turtle as more bad winds were expected.
Anchored at Great Guana Cay with Blue Younder III and Ensenel – 3/15-3/16/18
Anchored at north bay of Manjack Cay – 3/17-3/18/18
Docked at Leeward Yacht Club and Marina 3/19-3/31/18
No comments:
Post a Comment