Monday May 6: Orchid Bay, Great Guana Cay

Orchid Bay Marina - overlooking the Sea of Abaco

Sunday we decided to finally move on from Marsh Harbor even though the wind was blowing at a good clip out of the East. It was a harrowing getaway from the docks for both us and for Randy and Cindy. The difficulty is of course trying to turn these trawlers quickly in a beam wind!

But once away from the dock and across the Sea of Abaco for the 7 mile trip to Great Guana Cay, all was well. We stayed at Orchid Bay Marina and Randy and Cindy opted to grab a mooring ball just a hundred yards from the docks. The plan was to stay a couple of nights.

It's a very nice marina but typically we really don't take advantage of all that's offered. Nice pool, nice restaurant and beautiful grounds. But it's almost like it's more work using the facilities than it's worth! Once at the dock, it seemed to be fine to just relaxing reading until dinner.

Monday morning it was time to rent a golf cart again to see the island. We had been here in 2014 but wanted to see some of the fun stuff from last time.

Beginning with the Dream Tree. The sign on the tree explains why all of the bobbers are on the tree. We looked for any bobbers from friends that we know have been here but couldn't spot any. There are a number of these trees on the island but this one seemed the most popular!

The bobber tree

A stop at the public beach seemed to be in order. Very nice soccer field, pavilion, beach, pier and restroom for public use.

Nice public beach

We tried to get into the “private” northern end of the island on the pretext of wanting to check the marina. Guess we didn't “look the look” and were turned away at the guard gate. Well, fine. Guess we'll build our mega mansion somewhere else!!

Nipper's beach

There is also a public beach at Nipper's Bar and Grill. This is probably one of the best known bars in the Abacos. 

It sits overlooking the ocean and is brightly painted in the typical Bahamian colors. Plus it has a couple of swimming pools!! Anyone for drinks while you cool off?

We settled for a beer and a seat overlooking the ocean. Such beautiful waters. There are reefs out there but as Steve found out last time, they are quite a ways from shore!

They also have an excellent display of why not to drive heavy equipment on sand! When Steve rented the golf cart, the guy shared harrowing stories of what they have to do to recover their carts after a crazy weekend – including pulling out a cart that someone backed over a seawall :-)

His parting words were: stay off of the sand - you WILL get stuck!!

So we found the next innovation in snorkeling/diving: Cindy is sitting in this little self-propelled scooter type thing. A scuba tank sits on the front so you can just drive around the reef – no experience needed :-)

Dinghy ride under the dock!

Randy and Cindy joined us for docktails and dinner Monday night – by taking the shortest path to us: under the docks in their dinghy!

We celebrated a successful trip on the flybridge with a toast of sparkling wine. It was sadly time to part ways. We are headed back to Marathon to store the boat on the hard for the summer but Randy and Cindy have decided to leave their boat here in the Bahamas!!

This means they will just fly back to Marsh Harbor next December or so and spend the winter months here in the Abacos. We'll return to Banana Bay but it wont' be the same without them.

But we'll see them this summer when we meet up on the Trent Canal: they will be on Margaritaville and we'll be on Guppy!

We also celebrated Cindy's birthday (early) with a cake and candles. Nice job Steve baking the cake :-)

Tomorrow it's time for us to head back toward the West End where we'll cross the gulf stream again - this time headed west.

Steve's hoping there is another mahi mahi in his future :-)


So we'll miss Randy and Cindy as we continue on - and we'll miss Cricket and Gigit as well! Randy sent a video: Cricket complaining to Randy that apparently he doesn't throw her 'toy' as well as we do :-) Quite the talker!