Great Harbour Cay Marina

Saturday May 10, 2014
25 44.853 N
77 51.606 W

This is probably the coolest marina we have visited. Access was thru a man made cut into a pretty deep estuary, and the marina pool has the feel it was cut out of the limestone. We have really just arrived so I do not know what the other attractions are. But we have decided to stay 2 nights.

We stayed in Nassau an extra day because the weather seemed just too bad to move. But the same weather was forecast for another 5 days so we decide to "damn the torpedoes" and leave. This was decided after a lot of "dock talk". You can always find someone on the dock to talk about the weather. And Chris Parker (the local weather guru) was starting to mention "Named Tropical Storm". The wind has been blowing East at 15/25 kts ever since we arrived. But that is better than a gale force tropical storm.

We figured the wind and waves would be "stern-ish" and that helps. We also figured that the Nassau marina was costing us about $100 a day. The clock was also ticking on getting back to Charleston by June 1. The "man or mouse" idea was also on my mind. Time to leave.

I am now convinced that travelling "with the weather" is a whole new game. It was a sunny day and the "current was with us" so we averaged about 7 1/4 kts all day. Tide Hiker handled the following seas and we had a decent ride, much better than expected. It was a long day - 65 NM - but there is plenty of daylight and so the only issue was a bit of boredom.

We were on the "cruise ship" highway so saw a bunch (5?) of cruise ships. Other than that we were on our own.

Fishing Boats (on our way out)

Sorry - I like big boats. This one had just arrived

This one was on its way into the harbour

This one was a few miles out - and distant

MSC Freighter

Anchored off an island - tourists being shuttled to and from

Man made cut to the marina 

Same - over the stern

There was a wedding at the marina

The marina from our deck - better photo tomorrow

Sunday May 11, 2014
Mothers day

Took the bikes down and did some exploring. It was pretty hot and we did a bunch of resting. As usual, town was pretty sad. There is a nice beach with a small hotel and some condos, but not mush else. We investigated the "pool and bar" but there is no way I would swim in that pool. It's sad how money is spent to build facilities but there is just no care and maintenance. The marina is run by a guy called "Hans" and it seems in decent shape. While we were away the marina dropped off a hand made bouquet of flowers for Deidre. Nice touch. But not much to do so we took a two hour nap.

From the Marina staff - Mother's day

In my opinion the marina would rate as a "hurricane hole" and that may be useful as there is potential for a tropical storm with heavy rain and gale force winds reaching us, so we may be staying longer than expected. We saw three sailing boats anchored in front of the town, and they have all rolled in here with the same weather thoughts.

The WiFi is spectacular here, so we were able to Skype all three kids, video and all.





Monday May 12, 2014

The low pressure may not reach us but there will be lots of wind the next couple of days, so we are staying put. There is not much to do so we both got busy with boat tasks and I went for another bike ride, followed by an afternoon nap. Spent a fair amount of time looking at weather trying to find a three day window to get back to the USA.

The marina pool bar - looks great, but don't look too closely

... and the water in the marina is cleaner

Tuesday May 13, 2014

Pretty much a lost day. We did ride our bikes over to the beach but it was really to windy to enjoy.