Thursday, April 27, 2017

Great Guana to Treasure Cay - 2017

--Blogpost written by Bob



Being somewhat dissatisfied with Great Guana Cay, we left Settlement Harbour a day earlier than we anticipated and headed westward toward Treasure Cay at 9:30 AM on Wednesday, April 26.  We decided to splurge a little and stay in a marina at Treasure Cay for a couple days--it will be a nice change of pace from staying on mooring buoys and anchoring out.  It will be our first stay in a marina since Green Turtle Cay back on March 8--48 days  ago.  We arrived at Treasure Cay Marina at 11:30 AM--it was a short motoring trip across the beautiful Sea of Abaco.  Treasure Cay is not actually an island but an irregularly shaped peninsula on Great Abaco Island.  It is a large developed area with a 150-slip marina, three restaurants, and residences.  The development is very much like you might find in southern Florida except the beach is a lot less crowded.


This is the beach at Treasure Cay on the Sea of
Abaco--it is absolutely stunning!


The 4-mile long beach is almost completely devoid of people.


Just a simple piece of colored rope that
washed up onto the beach.


These are colorful condos that are on the marina complex.
Each different color building, though they look like
townhouses, have four apartment units.


This is the sign for the ladies showers at the marina.  The name 
of the outdoor bar at the marina is the Tipsy Seagull.


We checked out the grocery store here and it is pretty well stocked with prices slightly higher than Maxwell's in Marsh Harbour.   Consequently, we are thinking about staying here until we are ready to head back across the northern Abacos and back to the U.S.  We will need to provision here for about two weeks of cruising.

Treasure Cay currently has a population of 1187 (in 2010).  It was originally called Carlton Point, founded in 1783, and was inhabited by about 600 British loyalists fleeing from the U.S.   A hurricane hit the area in 1785 (two years later) and the original settlement was abandoned.  


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We had intended to wake up and walk on the beach at sunrise but somehow that didn't happen this morning, Thursday, April 27.  I did take some photographs around the marina at sunrise--here are a couple:


Sunrise in Treasure Cay Marina on April 27.



Morning reflections of palm trees in the marina's pool.



We used our onboard A/C last night.  When we are on a mooring or at anchor our boats swings with the wind and our overhead hatches provide great air circulation but when we are in a slip we lose that very useful natural cooling function.


Our view from our cockpit this morning includes the homes
in the Treasure Cay Marina complex with their
slips behind their houses.


We have a nice cool breeze out of the southeast this morning--it is blowing into our cockpit as we sit outside (I'm drinking tea and Maggie is drinking coffee).  Both of our flags (our U.S. flag on the stern and our Bahamian courtesy flag on our starboard spreader) are severely tattered from the consistent winds we experienced through our season here in the Bahamas.  Both flags will have to be replaced over the summer.

After lunch we got an umbrella on the beach and Maggie tried paddle boarding.



Maggie pulls the paddle board out into the
turquoise water of the Sea of Abaco.



She starts out by kneeling on the paddle
board to get the feel of it.



Within a few minutes, she is standing on the paddle board.
There was only one setback.




I took this photograph of five empty beach chairs
along the beach at Treasure Cay.



Our day ended with dinner at the marina--it was pizza night!  I learned that the Thursday night "pizza nights" started way back in 1989--28 years ago.

Treasure Cay was originally known as Sand Bank Cays.  The resort complex as we know it today was initially developed in the early 1960's (when the Bahamas were still owned by England) and development continued through Bahamian independence in July 1973 and into the present time.  The "Tipsy Seagull" bar where we had lunch today was built in 1982.  More information on the history of Treasure Cay can be found at "A Brief History of Treasure Cay."

We will be most likely be staying here a couple more days.  Stay tuned for more of our craziness...


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