Great Guana Cay (2014-02-04)

N26° 40.032', W77° 07.030'

Tonight finds us at anchor in Fishers Bay, at Great Guana Cay.



Yesterday we left the anchorage near Hopetown to make a short run up to Man O War Cay.  We had wanted to anchor in a small bay known as "The Low Place", but there was mention in Active Captain about problems with the holding in the southern part of the bay.  There was a float warning of a power cable in the northern part of the bay, so that was no longer an option.  We tried twice to get a set in the middle of the bay, but we couldn't get the anchor to bite.  The second attempt I donned my snorkel gear and dove on the anchor only to find it laying on top of the bottom.  I tried to manually set it into the bottom but found that while the bottom looked like sand it was actually hard as rock.  After that we gave up and moved to a spot near the north end of Dickies Cay known as Scopley Rock, where we had no problem getting a good set on the anchor.

We found the anchorage at Man O War Cay to be a bit too exposed for our tastes, so we decided to head out today to Great Guana Cay, to anchor north of the settlement harbour in a bay called Fishers Bay.  This is a great anchorage with lots of shelter and good holding, as long as you are careful to drop your anchor in a patch of open sand and not the sea-grass.  There are about 10 mooring balls here, but unlike other places we've been where they put mooring balls in an anchorage, these didn't impede finding a spot to anchor all that much.  Tip of the hat to Dive Guana, the business that owns the mooring balls, for doing it right.

Looking out at the anchorage from Grabbers

At the head of Fishers Bay is a beautiful beach with a bar called Grabbers.  This is a great place to land the dinghy to do some exploring, as long as you don't mind either having your dinghy high and dry as the tide goes out, or floating free if it's coming in.  In our case, the tide was going out, so I had a nice bit of exercise dragging our dinghy back down to the water after our walk. :-)

When we got on shore this afternoon we had a destination in mind.  A famous beach bar called Nippers had been recommended in pretty much every cruising guide we had, as well as by most of the cruisers we met, so we decided to go check it out.

Lots of signs pointing the way!

We ended up staying there for a delicious supper of grilled grouper.  We also decided to check out their signature drink called a Frozen Nipper.

It's a mixture of rum (a lot of it!) and fruit juices, blended with crushed ice.  It might have just been that it was a hot day today, but these things sure seem to pack a punch.  After only half of one we were having trouble working the camera to take a picture of ourselves enjoying the second half of our drinks!

We're planning on spending a couple more days here enjoying Great Guana, and the incredible beaches.  The forecast for Friday is for fairly calm winds, so we'll probably take that opportunity to sneak back past The Whale and head back to Green Turtle Cay for another visit.

Good night from Great Guana Cay