Palm Cay Marina to Highborne Cay, Exuma

January 15, 2020 - January 19, 2020

Our last day in Palm Cay Marina was spent buying groceries, rum, and eating pizza at the Pink Octopus.

 Bob and I enjoying a delicious pepperoni pizza.

We also ran the water maker while we were connected to shore power to fill our forward tank with good water ( the water we filled our tanks with in West End tasted terrible).  Running the water maker for seven hours produces ten gallons of great tasting water.  We’re happy to know that all the effort Bob put in to the installation is now paying off.  It’s working beautifully!

We couldn’t leave the marina on Thursday until after the office opened at 9:00 am since we needed the help of a dock hand to get out of our slip.  I settled our bill and bought ice (which I forgot to get out of the freezer and bring to the boat). Getting out of the slip was somewhat dicey as the wind was pushing the boat the wrong way.  Bob expertly turned the boat around as I fended us off the pilings with a boat hook and we were on our way.  After leaving the channel I stood on the bow watching for coral heads until Bob was certain they were now easily visible from the helm when the sun was higher in the sky.  It was a long motoring trip (five hours) through the beautiful bright turquoise waters.  There was more sea motion than we expected making the ride uncomfortable but doable.  We anchored in a picturesque spot near Highbourne Cay along with about 20 other boats.  I got on my snorkel gear and swam out to check that the anchor was well set.  The water was fabulous, just cool not cold and as clear as I have ever seen.  We were anchored in seventeen feet and the bottom was clearly visible.

I took this picture of the anchor.
You can see that is well set.

 It is breathtakingly beautiful here.  

Relaxing in the cockpit later with the warm sunshine and the gentle cool breeze was what we had been waiting to experience since we left Baltimore in October.  Yes, it is worth the effort to get here.

A sunset like this is only visible when anchoring out.

We rose early enough on Friday to see the sunrise.  I loved that I put on my bathing suit first thing in the morning.  After breakfast we got the dinghy ready and motored over to the reef for some snorkeling.  I was in the water by 8:30 am without my shortie wet suit.  The water temperature was cool but comfortable.  The reef was a series of coral heads along a rock out cropping that I followed for quite a way viewing the underwater spectacle of coral and colorful fish - sergeant majors, blue tangs, one trunk fish, yellow damsels, and lots I couldn’t identify. I just love snorkeling.  Sorry, none of the pictures I took with the GoPro turned out.

On our way back to the boat we motored by the beach, but we couldn’t land the dinghy as the island is privately owned by a resort.  I took my first sun shower of the season in the cockpit. It always amazes me how many showers you can get out of five gallons of water and I always wash my hair.  We Americans are blessed with so many resources we tend to forget how precious clean water is in many parts of the world.  

For lunch we took the dinghy into the marina on the south end of the island. The only areas we were allowed to access (since we were anchored outside and not in a slip in the marina) were the general store and the restaurant.  We could have paid $25 per person to have complete access to all of the resort amenities, but we were only there for lunch. We had a great lunch overlooking the harbour and beach but, it really wasn’t worth the $100+ we paid for it.  The Bahamas are expensive!

We entered the marina and tied up at the dinghy dock.

A colorful parrot greeted us as we walked to the facilities.

The walkway to the restaurant was
bordered by greenery.

This is the view we had from the
open air restaurant on the hill.
I almost had to pinch myself to
make sure I wasn't dreaming!

A storm blew in later that afternoon and I was happy I had gotten my snorkeling in early.  That night the winds picked up significantly (30+ mph) and we once again had to change our plans of leaving Highbourne Cay on Saturday.  We will have to wait until the wind subsides. Our next planned stop is the islands of the land and sea park so we will be out of range of any cell towers for a few days.  I’ll post my next blog as soon as we get back to civilization.

Thank you for reading my blog.