Au Guana Cay avec Sherry
24 April 2011 | Guana Cay, Abacos
Still gorgeous, its the Abacos after all
So we left Marsh Harbour Saturday near high tide and sailed over to Guana Cay. Not a long sail, about 2 hours over the Sea of Abaco with about 15 kts wind from the SE made it nice under jib and main. As we approached the Settlement we dropped sail and then went on to Fishers Bay were Dive Guana said they had some moorings available. Nice thing about Fishers Bay is you can swim and snorkle right off the boat, no coral but star fish, sand dollars and rays were in evidence. We tied up next to Odysseus and then settled in for a couple of days of fun in the sun.
Guana is known as the “Party Cay” with a population of about 300 and three bars, Pirates Cove off the Govt Dock, Grabbers on Sunset Beach facing Fishers Bay and the infamous Nippers, overlooking the long lush beach on the ocean side. All these places serve copious quanties of booze. Add to that a liquour store and “Bare Foot Man” Concerts and you get the idea.
Saturday afternoon we decided to take it easy, so we went ashore at DiveGuana dock and walked into the settlement. Big changes from 2006, a lot more docks, a big marina on the south end with a new breakwater and a lot more traffic (foot and golfcarts). The grocery store and liquor stores were in same location so we grabbed a few items and headed back towards the boat. Sherry and Jason grabbed a golf cart and decided to tour the island while Wendy and I returned to the boat to stow the provisions and get changed for dinner at Grabbers where Carol/Paul would join us. Gorgeous sunset, great drinks and a good meal rounded out the night. Back to the boat and after a game or two of dice we went to bed.
Sunday we knew was popular, but when the anchorage went from 5 boats to 20+ boats we knew it would be busy. We had planned for this to be a Nipper s day, heading up for their pig roast buffet. Problem was weather was a bit windy, anchorage a bit lumpy and Sherry/Jason had a touch of mal de mer which made it a long lazy morning aboard. Late that afternoon, having recovered somewhat, they decided they wanted to head into town for the evening for a walk and a drink. Burry dingied them in around 430, encountering a large ray enroute. Later Carol and Paul came over for drinks and munchies (they were heading to Green Turtle next am). A few (ok a lot) of hours later we get a garbled radio call from Jason (gave him the hand held), “Sherry is lost and cant walk further can we pick them up at Grabbers?” I thought reception was bad but after a repeat realized it wasn’t the radios fault lol. So Wendy made Burry pick them up at Grabbers and after some effort got them safely aboard the dingy and tranfered to the mothership. Apparently the bartenders on Guana are very liberal with their shots of liquour, which led to Sherry’s predicament.
Monday Paul and Carol launched to Green Turtle Cay, with us decided to stay another day and try to get onto the beach. After a slow start,some breakfast we headed over, snorkle gear in hand. Was a great sunny day and the beach was almost deserted when we arrived. After a quick lunch, we set up the blanket and umbrella and then snorkled out to the reef. Larger than Mermaid but a lot less coral and fish. The exciting part was Burry spent about 5 min snorkling with a Green Turtle, great experience but regretably could not catch on the camera as it had a fogged lens problem that morning. After a good long snorkle we vegged on the beach, then Wendy/Burry went for a long walk south along the beach while Jason/Sherry slept under the umbrella. Later that afternoon dark clouds looked ominous so we packed up and zipped back to Seahawk, only to discover the squall breezed past us dropping hardly no rain.
Next morning we let go of the mooring and decided to head back south, and visit Man O War Cay. Stay tuned for next report on Jason and Sherry’s prohabition experience!