Bahamas Day 10

The Whale and Guana Cay

The next morning started out perfectly, we awoke to bright sunshine and light winds. It was time for the Whale. 

We hauled anchor and started east. We double checked that everything below was stowed for sea and donned our life jackets. The water started out very calm but as we made our way to the cut, we started to feel the ocean rollers. They were gentle and far apart but clearly a different type of wave than we had seen on the bank. The surface was calm though, no breaking waves in any direction – those are the exact conditions the guidebooks had advised for passages. 

As we made our way through the cut, the swell built a little but there were no breakers. We left the aquamarine blue water of the shallow bank and experienced the deeper blue water of the ocean. Lucas did a great job navigating through the narrow cut. I was on the lookout for other boats and in the process spotted a huge sea turtle just chilling on the surface. 

And before we knew it, the hardest part of the Whale was behind us. It is always a relief when potentially scary areas are less dramatic than expected. 

We spent the next hour motoring to our anchorage on the eastern side of Guana Cay. This island is very different from what we have seen so far in the Abacos. There were so many houses and mansions. This area was hit very hard by Hurricane Dorian in 2019, so I was surprised to see so many beautiful homes. We found a pretty spot to anchor near a shallow bay. 

We were greeted by club music blaring from shore. We had certainly left the peace and quiet of Powell Cay behind us. 

Once we got ourselves settled, we launched Margaret and prepared to go to shore. Just as we were about to leave, a huge power boat sped into the anchorage and promptly ran aground on a very well-charted rocky shoal. The people on board looked around for a minute and then just casually dropped an anchor with about five feet of chain. They then jumped in their dinghy and went to shore. Leaving an unsecured, but temporarily aground, boat about 500 feet from Alaya. We all knew that the tide was rising and at some point, their boat would start floating. We didn’t know where it would float to while unattended. Since they decided to use this time to go to the bar instead of being responsible captains, we were stuck on Alaya to make sure she was ok.

Oh darn. We were stuck on Alaya on a beautiful sunny day in the Bahamas. What has come of our lives? I spent the time working on my Mackinac Island coloring book. Lucas spent the time watching the aground boat and worrying. 

A few hours later, the power boat started to float again. The captain and crew arrived just in time to jump back on board and re-anchor, luckily far away from Alaya. Lucas and I were pretty annoyed with their irresponsibility but also impressed with how they timed their drinks and the tide. Have they done this song and dance before?

Now that Alaya was in a safer situation, we headed to shore. First on our Guana Cay agenda was finding Nippers, a famous bar in the Abacos. Our Nippers mission began more than a year prior. We walked into a random brewery in Oriental, NC on our way south last season and met a friendly bartender named EZ. We got to chatting and EZ, a fellow sailor, was very excited to learn we were heading to the Bahamas. He pulled a logo’d poker chip from his pocket and said it would get us a free drink at Nippers. Just tell them that “EZ sent us.” Sweet! 

We didn’t make it to Nippers last year but we kept that poker chip. Today, February 9, was now the time to find out if EZ was full of shit. 

We motored around the bay to Nippers’ dinghy dock. We arrived at low tide and the dock was very high above Margaret. I scrambled up to tie us off and Lucas stayed on Margaret to lock her to the post. As he reached around the base of the post near the water, a very large nurse shark swam right under Margaret. Freaky! Lucas turned around to see a couple on a neighboring dock throwing food into the water baiting the shark. Cool.

As soon as both of us were on land, we were accosted with Guana Cay. It is very clearly a party island. Instead of taking the Nippers taxi golf cart to the bar, we opted to walk. Fifteen minutes later and three close calls with golf carts speeding by on narrow sandy roads, we arrived at Nippers. It was quite the beach bar complex. There were about five different levels for partying. We walked up to the closest bar and pulled out the poker chip. The bartender had no idea who EZ was but honored our token. She gave us our drinks (one free and one on our tab), frozen rum punches and we headed up to a balcony facing the ocean. 

The view of the Atlantic Ocean was stunning. We enjoyed our drinks and soaked in the ambiance of the bar. It wasn’t very busy at the time but we could tell it was a happening place. We got to chatting with a group of guys next to us. One guy was from Michigan and the others were from Ohio! Small world stuff, again. They were on a business trip and staying with a friend who owned a house on the island. We all got to talking about how great Mackinac Island is and found ourselves helping one of the guys plan an anniversary trip for him and his wife this summer. It was surreal to be on a beautiful island in the Bahamas talking about people visiting our favorite island thousands of miles away. There are no limits on Mackinac’s magic.

After a few drinks at Nippers, we walked back to Margaret and drove her over to the other famous bar on Guana – Grabbers. I know, I know. These names are something else. As we were docking, we met a couple who were interested in the Great Loop. While we are not officially loopers, we have done nearly half of it and had a great time talking with them about it. Mackinac Island came up again because it is a popular stop on the Great Lakes portion of the loop. 

We ordered drinks and appetizers at Grabbers and settled in for the show. It was Super Bowl Sunday! Even in the Bahamas, the Super Bowl is a big deal, in part, I’m sure because there are so many Americans here. The bar set up a huge screen and had the game projected onto it. This worked great most of the time. Every so often someone would accidentally lean on the bar stool holding up the extension cords and the whole bar would lose power. They would get the game back up after a few minutes and then 30 minutes later, it would happen again. I didn’t mind the interruptions at all, although I think we missed a few looks at Taylor Swift. We headed back to Alaya after the halftime show and watched the rest of the game in bed.

Overall, I’m glad we stopped at Guana Cay but it was not really my vibe. I went to sleep wondering if all the islands on this side of the Whale are going to be so “spring breaky.”