Our sail to Great Harbour was one of our best so far on Windara. I got some practice hand-steering her in a beam sea, and it’s amazing how responsive and manageable she is. We started later than we’d hoped, but it was a quick sail, and we got within 2 miles of Island Dream who started out with a 10 mile lead. After we anchored, they dinghied over and picked us up for sundowners aboard Mahina, another boat we’d met in Lucaya. It was a fun evening with lots of laughs.
In the morning, we picked up Paul and Lori to go explore by dinghy. We checked out a nice little beach and dinghied around a sunken DC-3. We wanted to snorkel but heard there’s a resident bull shark so we were hesitant. Instead we took turns hanging off the side of the dinghy with a mask on to get a look, and it’s really cool – there were so many fish and corals.
With weekend winds predicted to be nasty, we managed to snag a slip at Great Harbour Cay Marina. We moved into the marina and then had everyone come by to go explore the beach. We took a long walk down to Shelling Beach, and it was one of the most beautiful spots we’d ever seen. Afterwards, we dinghied out to Island Dream for drinks. Coming back was an adventure – looking for the narrow cut into the harbor would have been a real challenge without the charts on our phones! I’m so bummed they all had to leave, but with the coming winds, the anchorage wouldn’t be safe and there was no more space at the marina. I’m sure we’ll all cross paths again at some point.
Great Harbour Cay Marina is incredibly well-protected and does a nice job of catering to cruisers. Once a week, they take orders for coconut bread – they pick it up from one of the local restaurants and you get your order at the marina office. Coconut bread is one of my favorite things, so it was a nice treat! They also organize a couple different dinners each week – Friday nights they host “chill & grill”, where they offer a Bahamian menu (they grill chicken, pork and ribs and offer a choice of a bunch of sides). All the cruisers dine together at the pavilion. As the wind gusted up at the beginning of last Friday’s big blow, the power went out in the middle of dinner. Completely unfazed, people grabbed portable lights from their boats and carried on. On Saturdays, the marina does pizza delivery right to your slip. It’s not New York pizza by any stretch, but it doesn’t try to be, and the spicy Hawaiian pie we got was big enough for two dinners for the both of us.
The blow brought in several boats, and among them were our friends on V Twin, who we’d met last year in Man-o-War. We also ran into Silvia and Allen on Meshuggana, who we’d had dinner with in Lucaya. We had drinks aboard V Twin and met their neighbors on Journey, who were around our age and just getting into cruising.
Nile and Linda on Mañana, who I met through the Catalina 36 association’s Facebook page, are also here, and it was nice to have them over for drinks. At the cruisers dinner, we met Dave and Adam on Flight, and we also had them over for drinks and had a nice dinner on their boat. It was fun to reconnect with people we’d met last year and make some new friends too!
On the dock we met Mark, who set up a chair and worked on the basket he was hand-weaving. He told us how he’d learned at a workshop for cruisers somewhere along the lines. He also shared a story about how one of the dockmasters, Trameco, approached him a few years back and told him how his grandmother used to make baskets using the same technique, and how he’d recently had a dream about it. Mark offered to teach him, reconnecting him with a bit of his past. Trameco still makes and sells baskets, and I thought it was such a beautiful story. I would have loved to learn to make a basket myself, but it’s even better that I was able to buy one, especially knowing the special story of family memories behind it.
Three manatees live in the marina, including a momma and baby. We came out for lunch one afternoon and they were sleeping in our slip. They were there for almost an hour and it was amazing to get to spend that time so close to such amazing creatures. The marina’s bulkhead is cut from the stone that makes up the island, and it’s like walking alongside a reef – there are all kinds of cool fish, crabs, and even sharks that come through.
