Great Guana Cay

FYI - A cay has no fresh water, an island does.

We have had seven amazingly beautiful days moored in two of the places that are quintessential “paradise”. Treasure Cay was well worth the visit and now Great Guana is the kind of vacation anyone would hope for. The nights have been so clear the stars make a blanket of lights above the open hatch. Days have been in the 80s, also so clear that jade/teal/ultramarine waters float beneath skies of cobalt blue. Puffy pure white clouds drift here and there, just enough to add variety to the heavenly expanse.
We have spent some part of each day at Nippers, a beach bar perched high on the dune/cliff on the Atlantic side of this Cay. During the day it is a gathering place for lunch, sodas and to enjoy the view. (Evenings are right out of a Jimmy Buffet song.) The vista is too much to take in one photo. To the south the palm- and pine-topped cliffs sweep down to the sandy arc of the broad beach. A rustic set of steps take you down to the beach which also sweeps far to the north, punctuated here and there with rugged rocks. Depending on the tide the rocks are either fully exposed and dry or the site of delightful little waterfalls as the breakers crash on the other side. They seem to be uninhabited but now and then some crab the size of your hand will scurry along the hot surface to shelter. The tide pools are unusually empty of snails, little fish or anything else you might expect.
The white dashed line of the barrier reef - the third longest in the world - breaks up the dark blue on the horizon. Nature has provided a smaller reef close to shore so less expert snorkelers can go all around this reef without having to deal with the crashing currents of the Atlantic. It is the broken coral swept in with the tide that lends pink to the otherwise off-white powdery beach.
Harmony is moored in a field of about eight boats in Fishers Bay on the western side of Great Guana. It is a very protected harbor so we plan to stay here through the cold front expected to arrive this evening (Sunday). It will make travel ill-advised until Tuesday.
Yesterday was a Five Ray Day! Early in the morning, Lew spotted a ray and called me topside to see it. By the time I got there it was just an amorphous dark shape floating away. A few minutes later he called me again and the show began. All of a sudden an enormous ray leaped out of the water. It must have been 5’ or more from wing tip to wing tip. The entire kite-shaped body was out of the water. In a minute or two it did it again! People on three other boats were also riveted to the spectacle and Dave identified the ray as an Eagle Ray because of the spots on its back. A few minutes later, Lew called me again and there were three rays swimming in formation near our boat. They were close enough that I could see the light color on one’s “chin”. What a day!
We topped it off with a fabulous rib dinner at Grabbers with new friends. Grabbers is on our side of the Cay and one of the other terrific gathering places on this still very Bahamian island. Anyone who has seen only Nassau (for instance) really hasn’t experienced all that the Bahamas are. This is one of the places that cruise ships can’t reach. We expect to be here comfortably until we can get underway to Hope Town on Elbow Cay on Tuesday morning.