We next decided to head over to Cave Cay, to explore the area a bit more thoroughly. It was a nice 13 mile run from Lee Stocking to Musha Cay for our overnight anchorage. The winds were predicted to be southerly, and our anchorage last time off Cave would have left us fairly exposed from the south. So we anchored in a narrow bit of water directly off David Copperfield’s exclusive resort for the night.
We took a long dinghy ride from Musha, north past Cave Cay, and over to Big Farmers and Little Farmers to check it out for the predicted weather and to dump some trash.
We stopped at the Little Farmers Yacht Club, paid to dump the trash, and had a few beers and talked to Mr Nixon who built and owned the Club. He also had some moorings that you could rent. But we decided that the current between the cays was just too fast, and the moorings did not sound like a good idea.
On the way back to the boat, we stopped in at Cave Cay Marina to try to buy some gas for the dinghy. We liked the look of the marina, very sheltered and protected, but a bit pricey. We were not able to buy any gas, unless we were guests at the marina.
That night was a rough one, as I was nervous about the anchorage, and the lack of room to swing. Luckily we had only one other yacht in the anchorage with us for the night. I slept on the watch berth in the pilothouse, so that I could more easily keep watch. It was a long and rough night.
We re-checked the weather and discovered that we were in for another westerly blow. Unfortunately, as in so many of these islands, there is very little protection from westerly winds. And there is no anchorage around us, and we were not really interested in heading all the way to Staniel Cay to anchor between the majors, which always get crowded in westerly blows. We called Cave Cay Marina, to see if they could take us for a few nights.
And so we moved over to the marina mid morning, and met Shark the dock master. The marina is modern, floating docks, and can take about 30 boats up to 150’ long.
With a westerly wind, we tied starboard side to the dock, between a big Sportfish, and a 47’ Catana catamaran. Docking with the winds broadside was interesting, but we had about 4 dock hands to catch lines. I learned, and even was a dock hand myself later, that helping to get new boats into the marina was the only entertainment on the docks, that and doing laundry.
And so we plugged in and cooled down the boat while we walked along the runway. Back at the boat, we decide Southern Star deserves a spa, and out- come the buckets and the cleaners, the mops and the rags, and the chamois. One of the owners of a Jefferson trawler gave us some special spray on rust remover to try out on the stainless work. The Nordhavn badge on the bow had rust streaks all around and under it. We pulled the bow forward so that we could reach it from the dock, and the spray worked fantastic.
After about 5 hours SS was sparkling, and we were exhausted. We had a great night on the dock, both slept very well with the cool interior and the security of being tied up alongside in a hurricane hole.
The next day, we walked the island, down the runway (Cave has a nice long airstrip that services Musha Cay’s resort). We crossed over to the ridge of the island, and peered at the ½ dozen or so large houses that overlooked the marina, and the Exuma Sound on the east side. Cave Cay suffers from as so many Bahamian Islands , from broken dreams.
In all of our travels along the Exumas, there are numerous, countless partially completed and deserted properties. There are whole developments, that have been started, some almost complete like here at Cave Cay, but then construction stopped and the project abandoned. Some look like ruins, with roofs falling in. But here at Cave, these building are completed; all windows, and doors, roofs intact, but interior walls unfinished.
Broken Dreams syndrome, we have seen it everywhere. It’s very weird to be walking through modern ‘ruins’.
A restful second night sleep before paying the bill and moving on.
We poked out of Cave Cay Cut and back into Rudder Cut just south of Musha where we had explored by dinghy a few days earlier. We dropped anchor off a beautiful white sand beach with caves extending out into the bay. We had good protection here from the relatively strong easterlies and spent 4 nights here. We did a bit of snorkeling, and saw others finding lobster close by but we didn’t see any.
This anchorage was one of our favourite so far, boats came and went, day boats cruised by the caves, but it was still quiet compared to George Town.
Sadly our Bahamamian visas were due to be renewed and we returned to George Town when the weather allowed.
