Sailing Bahamas 2024

A really fun place, with a mix of upscale hotels and resorts and down to tiny bars and fish fry shacks.

Getting here from Spanish Wells requires navigating the Devils Backbone route, which means someone is on the bow full time to spot bommies that could too very bad things to your hulls.

After navigating into Harbour Island Bay, there’s plenty of room in a couple of spots to anchor. We chose close in, with the advantage of easy access to a dinghy dock at Valentines Marina, but with the disadvantage of private boat and taxi traffic.

Dunmore Town is well worth a visit, so we rented a golf cart and took the tour. It also meant we could easily hit up the hardware, the plumbing store, several grocery stores and the bakery/coffee shop. When we got around to making a payment at the golf rental shop, it was the owner's mother that took our money - family business.

Since we’re current on our dive certs, we decided to do some dives. With Nada as captain, and Neil Mcfee as dove master, we dove the Blowhole, a bouldered coastal site under the cliffs and Sea Garden, just out the southern cut to the ocean. While not too exciting from a wildlife standpoint, Alexis got her first view of spiny lobsters still in their holes. No, they wouldn’t let me spear any :(.

We ate dinner one evening at Romora Bay Marina’s Acquapazza restaurant, with a hilltop view of the bay and Ashling at anchor. Another evening we ate at Ma Rubys, now run by her daughter Juanita, or “Baby Ruby”. Amusingly, a math error on the bill added an extra $130!

Another stop was after dinner, for a coffee at the Rock House Hotel, a 10 room boutique hotel. This was the money side of town, with patrons quite enjoying themselves.

When we decided to move on, we asked on vhf to come in for some fuel. But they told us they were out of diesel, so we had to go to the government dock. Generally, I avoid these docks because they’re sized for the mailboats (freight), are built of unforgiving concrete, usually have rusty bolts sticking out, and may or may not have any padding. This one wasn’t too bad - the bolts didn’t stick out further than the half-worn piling. But we got the fuel and then had to wait for a rain squalls to pass to make payment.

Finally, out the southern cut and then N to Abaco. Czytaj więcej