Great Harbour Cay

Captives of Great Harbour Cay 

After we arrived at Great Harbour Cay, we couldn’t get away from it.

 

 

 

We planned to stay for our required COVID rapid antigen test, which must be taken on our fifth day in the country, January 16th. 

 

Then, I ordered 4 more fuel filters from Nassau. They would arrive on the following Wednesday’s mail boat, weather permitting. Those $14 filters cost $48 each in The Bahamas. 

 

There’s always the weather as an excuse. Great Harbour is one of the few cays with safe anchorages on both its bank (West) and ocean (East) sides. Cold fronts charge off the continental US, clocking the local winds from their normal North East/South East directions to the West. We traveled back and forth to avoid winds in the cay's lee.  For a real blow, the marina is in a true hurricane hole. There’s limited room to anchor, and with cruiser numbers down, there are usually transient slips available.

And, finally, there were things to see on and around the cay.

Mariner's Note 

As Great Lakes sailors, we don’t often have to worry about current. We passed over the north end of the Berrys a number of times, traveling from the West to the East sides of Great Harbour. Going over the top takes us past Little Stirrup and Great Stirrup cays, just north of Great Harbour. 

On a passage from East to West, we ran into an unforgiving current as we approached the Southeast corner of Great Stirrup. Hiatus is not a close-winded boat. In good conditions, she can tack through about 100°. Below is our track as we ran into the current. At one point, our tacks resulted in us losing ground, going backwards. We approached Great Stirrup just after high tide. I suspect that the current was created by water flowing off the shallow bank to the west into the deeper water that flows past the north shores of Little and Great Stirrup Cays. Our solution was to sail north into deeper water, where the current slackened.