Green Turtle to Guana Cay

HI Again,

Writing to you from Great Guana Cay, just a short boat ride south from Green Turtle Cay, where we were holed up for almost a week, waiting for the weather to get back to normal. It blew and blew with some rain – almost afraid to say it, but it actually got cool – 60 degrees and 30 mph winds for longer than seemed possible. But we had some good company in the other boaters who were also at the marina. We checked out the town, the local “Sundowners” Bar and got involved with some very friendly people –had a limbo contest at the local pub, where the resident limbo expert got down to less than 2 feet!

It finally stopped blowing so hard – we had to wait for the seas to calm down at Whale Cay passage that we either had to go through on the outside where the inlet meets the Atlantic or go through very shallow areas on the inside. Either way, the seas had to calm down. Going on the outside was possibly lethal 10 foot breakers, and the shoal area inside would also have waves and we would hit bottom as we went through the troughs of the waves. Neither was possible. So, yesterday, with the seas calmed and the wind temporarily blown out, we motored down through the shoal pass on the inside called Dont Rock Passage ( spelled this way). We had met a 26 year old guy, Doug, in Green Turtle headed the same way, and his crew had to leave, so he was singlehanding for the first time. We had the better charting, so we led the way at half tide through the pass, nearly bottoming ourselves at 3 feet – Doug scraped bottom once.

But we made it to Nippers on Guana for the weekly Pig Roast. Met up with another cruiser, Fred, we had met at Green Turtle. We were expecting a full pig on a spit, but were slightly disappointed to find a decent barbeque and a loud music-driven bunch of boaters, locals, and others – not sure how they got there. Macaroni and cheese with the consistency of a noodle pudding is considered the vegetable down here. Here is a picture of Ronnie and me at Nippers.


After the roast, we wandered around and found the competition – Grabbers – a sports bar with slight quieter music and a more comfortable feel to it. Also accessible by dinghy, since it is on Sunset Beach. A game of Bocci was being played to much fanfare. We all decided to learn how to play and go the next day and challenging the champs. Sunset Beach deserves its name – a picture of Fred’s boat moored at Guana Cay.


Well we got back the today and everything was closed on Mondays. Luckily we found the owner and she lent us the Bocci balls for the day, so Ronnie and I played Doug and Fred in a hotly contested match of Bocci – none of us had played before, but we won handily and retired to the hammocks on the beach as our reward. Tough day.


We plan on heading south to Marsh Harbour tomorrow. It’s been described as urban – it’s got one stoplight – and we may miss the isolation of the islands we have been on, but we will report next week on what we find.

Good weather has returned and we are happy. Hope everyone is enjoying this Blog. We plan on finding a sports bar next weekend to watch the Patriots.

Go Pats!

Arnie and Ronnie