Highbourne Cay Marina
Latitude: 24.70963 Longitude: -76.82214
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Bahamas Day 110 – BD110 (4/25/12) – We travelled approximately 60 miles west of Andros to arrive at Highbourne Cay around 1:00 p.m. This privately-owned island is 35 miles southeast of New Providence Island and is part of the Exuma chain of islands. From a distance, Highbourne Cay is easily identified by a 300′ telecommunications tower, visible from 12 miles out on clear days. As you get closer, a house with a bright white roof, situated 102′ above sea level and north of the tower, is the next easily identifiable landmark. After docking and checking in, we had a $75 lunch at an open-air restaurant, Xuma, perched on the west side of a bluff overlooking the beach. Then Rick cleaned the boat (every surface on the outside of the boat had salt water on it) while I napped.
We will be here for a few days.
BD111 (4/26/12) – Today, we explored to the north, visiting SW Allen’s & Leaf Cay. Although these islands are protected sanctuaries for rare marine iguanas, visiting is allowed. We beached the dingy and Rick set a chair in the sand for me. The iguanas are not very shy. As soon as they realized we were on the beach, they came to investigate. You can see one on the rock, just behind my head.
BD112 (4/27/12) – Today was overcast, so we opted not to go out in the dingy. We walked up to the little store by the office and sat in the rockers on the front porch talking to three fellows who were on a three-week sea kayaking trip. In my opinion, brave men indeed! They had hoped to continue a little farther north to the very top of the Exumas, but had decided to start their trip back south once they heard the weather prediction. They were very interesting and we enjoyed our chat very much. We ate lunch at Xuma (Rick says they have an awesome cracked conch sandwich and curry conch chowder) and then walked over the hill to see the other side of the island. Rick had gone over earlier this morning and walked to a beach. The view was beautiful, but the beach was too far for me to “clomp” to (as Rick put it) with my boot on. The bartender at Xuma told us that they were expecting 200 people tonight for a buffet supper. These would mostly be people here for the fishing tournament that starts in the morning. We were going to leave tomorrow, headed for Cape Eleuthera on southwest tip of Eleuthera Island, but small craft advisories and thunderstorms are predicted, so we have opted to stay here to wait out the weather.
We saw a very unique stop sign on our walk at the top of the hill.
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BD113 (4/28/12) – We awoke to rain. It drizzled off and on all day. Around noon, we decided to take our coffee and our books and go sit on the porch by the marina office. As we were watching boats of all sizes go in and out of the marina, we were surprised by a sea plane landing in the channel and making its way to the floating deck in the swimming area. One of the ladies who works in the office came out to the porch to watch the passengers get off the plane and get on a small boat that the marina sent out. She said that the 9-passenger plane had been chartered in Nassau to bring the group of 5 here to Highbourne for lunch at Xuma’s to celebrate a birthday (and we thought we were living the good life!)
BD114 (4/29/12) Sunday – We awoke to rain. For me, it was a “stay in your PJs day”. Rick got restless in the afternoon and walked through the rain to the front porch with his book. Two new boats came into the marina today. One had come 700 miles (over the last three days) from Puerto Rico. The gentleman told Rick that the last day (on the outside/east side) was pretty rough. He and Rick discussed satellite TV coverage down there and Rick was pleased to hear that you can get an English version. A 58’ Sedan Bridge Sea Ray docked in the slip next to us with 5 people aboard from Canada. We are lucky to be in a really well-protected marina because as the rain continued to fall, the wind also picked up.
BD115 (4/30/12) – We awoke to rain. Rick went up to the office to “hang out” this morning. He said that a Bahamian told him that they believe if it rains all day on Sunday, it will rain all week long! The others in the office (not Bahamian) said that their weather information indicated that the weather should improve on Wednesday. The Sea Ray next to us left this afternoon in the rain. They said if it was going to rain for the rest of their vacation, they were going to spend it in a casino in Nassau. The rain is still coming down, but the wind has changed direction and so Rick has been out (using the foul weather suit that the BYC Power Fleet gave us as a going-away gift) resetting the lines and bailing out the dingy.
BD116 (5/01/12) – Although it rained during the night, we awoke to a beautiful sunny day. It seems we are back in paradise. Yet, it is still pretty windy. We checked weather forecasts and decided to stay here until Friday morning. I was ready to get off the boat, so we packed a lunch, an ice chest and a chair and rented a golf cart for the day ($50). We drove around the island to all of the area that was open to the public (it is a very small island). We passed a bus stop, which is odd since there is no bus, and thought this patron must have waited a little bit too long! We stopped at several beach access trails along the east coastline, but finally decided that it was just too rough on that side of the island.
So, we went to a beach that we had seen the other day when returning from SW Allen’s Cay. There was a bench and a picnic table at this beach under an Australian pine tree. We ate our lunch at the picnic table and I sat in the shade of the pine tree while Rick went to explore. He found one nice starfish, but didn’t find much else in the water.
After lunch, we returned to the marina beach and I took off my boot to sit in a chair at the edge of the water. God has been so gracious to us to give us the opportunity to enjoy these beautiful surroundings.
BD117 (5/02/12) – Today we went south in the dingy to the next group of small islands. We stopped on an island that had a house and some other out buildings, but did not appear to be occupied at this time. We ate our picnic lunch and Rick did a little exploring. We returned to the boat and spent the rest of the afternoon reading. We have been intrigued by the many small birds on the island. A lot of them just seem to walk along the docks and sometimes visit the boats.
BD118 (5/3/12) – We talked to JP via SKYPE. Rick spent some time at the marina beach. We prepared to leave in the morning.
Departed Highbourne Cay Marina at 9:30 a.m. on 5/4/12.
