Sunday, January 24, 2016

Great Harbour Cay Marina

Conch Shell Horn Class!!
Well, another week has passed and the weather is still being contrary and uncooperative!  Everyone that knows and frequents the Bahamas say this weather is not usual for this time of year.  Every weather system that comes is associated with very high winds,  and I mean BLOWS, like 30-40 kt. winds.  The marina here is so nice and so sheltered from the weather, and the other cruisers (who are also waiting for a weather window) are all great people.  So here we are, hanging out in a marina.  It is a no brainer though, and after all, there are worse places to be.  We are keeping ourselves busy, having fun.  We either take the dinghy and motor around (if its not too windy) or we use the marina bicycles and explore the islands and the beaches.  We get one or two very nice days and then the cold fronts come and give us overcast, windy and sometimes wet days.  We finally had to pull out the old blue jeans and socks the last couple of days!
Right down the road there is the ruins of the Beach Club, where in its day hosted parties with celebrities.  Word has it that the Rat Pack held many gatherings here.  We walked around the ruins and marveled at the rock walls, the rocks around gardens and just the construction of the structure. You can see where there was a fire, which I guess is what led to its end.
View from the road
The driveway



A walkway, over the road, leading to the golf course

One of the many rock wall planters

Looking out at the beach from the over-street walkway

Below are a few pictures taken from the dinghy as we were exploring the waters around the marina.




Shark Creek

Beach at the end of Shark Creek

Clear water, pic taken from the dinghy

Different kind of bird!

The Wahoo Tournament was Saturday.  Several people canceled, (leaving the availability for us to still be here!) but there were 8-10 boats that went out.  The day was beautiful for fishing and boating, but the following day was stormy and windy.  We were able to watch the boats come in with their catches for the day.  The largest wahoo caught was 47.5 lbs! No picture of it because we missed the beginning of the weigh in.




That evening we went to the luau, featuring a real pig roast and party.  We were entertained by locals, performing a type of Junkanoo. Such fun!




Amico!! He also works at the marina.  He's a great guy!
The following morning brought the promised front, with rain and winds that were clocked at 50 mph! This is why we are here.
Here comes the storm!  Batten down the hatches!
We attended the awards banquet for the tournament Sunday night.  We all enjoyed a wonderful lobster and steak dinner!


Our marina neighbors, Jim and JoAnn, on "Ocean Spirit"
Lorri and Todd on "Harmony"

The Marina's best asset, Christelle, a "regular" boater, on "Time and Tide"
Ed and Hans (Marina Manager)
We went out in the dinghy again, this time with fishing poles.  We went down Shark Creek at low tide (we were told it can't be done).  However this is the advantage of having a teeny tiny dinghy and engine.  We were able to navigate the 6-8 inches of water without having to get out and drag the dinghy.  We found a deep spot and caught snapper!  Dinner!

Low Tide 
My catch! A mutton snapper!
                              

Yesterday we biked to the beach at super low tide.  We walked the sandbar, which is usually under water.  We "rescued" several sand dollars and starfish that got caught on the sand when the tide went out.  We explored and found lots of different living organisms on the beach.



Look carefully, there's the starfish, placed in the water

Beached!
Placed back in water
                             
A live sea urchin

A little worm does this in the sand

Baby Starfish!

Sand dollar, was on the move!

Sea Cucumber, a big squishy wormy thingy, yuk!

What a gorgeous place!!

We took another exploratory bicycle ride down Great Harbour Drive to Sugar Beach, ended up almost at the North Tip of the Cay and found the infamous caves and rocks.  Every sight looks like it belongs on a postcard.

Looks like we can climb this...

Yup!

Looking out from the cave

The view from the rocks

View from the top of the big rock
We returned just in time for the Conch Shell Horn-Making Class, led by Gary on Time and Tide.  We all had soaked our shells in bleach and cleaned them out and came to the class with a hacksaw, dremmel tool bandaid, small scissors, toothpicks and 5 minute epoxy to  make our horns.




It looks like there may have been better classes before us...we sounded like a kindergarten class trying to make music!!

Hope the video comes through!
The weather rolled in as promised and we all had to hunker down for the next couple of days.  There are 5-6 couples all leaving at the next weather window, which looks like Monday.  We compared notes and charts with each other.  We learned about lots of nice hidey holes, thanks mostly to Jay and Tonya on Minx!

The wind is gonna blow...
Tomorrow morning is "cast the lines" and off we go!  Sailing down to Market Fish Cay/Hoffman Cay for a couple of days, then over to Royal Island Harbor in Eleuthera!!
GREAT HARBOUR CAY MARINA is a great place to be weathered in at!  We had a blast, and met the nicest people here!