From Bitter Guana our goal was to find some weather that would allow us to sail on to Georgetown. We lifted the anchor and left the iguanas to themselves. Both boats, ours and Taua needed fuel and we needed water as well so we stopped at Safe Harbor Marine in Cave Cay.
Safe Harbor Marine is aptly named as it is a small harbor nearly completely surrounded by high walled island. It’s almost like boating into an extinct volcano. The dock hand (the owners son) was pleasant and informative. His family purchased the island and moved to it 16 years ago and have been working on creating a resort by dredging and building a hotel for most of that time. I would have liked to meet his parents and find out more of their story. It seems an interesting thing to purchase an island and live in virtual isolation for such a long time.
Prices were high there but Safe Harbor Marine is one of only two marinas that offers dock side fuel pump until you get to Long Island so we paid what we had to. The other marina is in Farmers Cay and we can’t quite wedge ourselves in there since they don’t have enough water for a 5.5 draft. After that stop we anchored for the night at Musha Cay which is owned by David Copperfield (the magician) as is the island next to it.
There is absolutely no going ashore allowed but from the boat it looks like a well-run resort rather than someone’s personal home. Apparently he does rent out the entire island for a mere $325,000 per week. Just in case any of you out there are interested I have contact info if you need it. No? Me either, I probably can’t even afford the 1 hour tour at that rate.
It blew like the dickens that night but fortunately the wave action was relatively flat in the anchorage in spite of the minimal amount of protection. As a result of the large shallow area there wasn’t much for fetch.
Next morning we went out Musha Cut and headed for Georgetown. Taua put up a sail right away but the wind was so minimal that even Boyd wasn’t tempted to put any sails out. Our wind speed indicator didn’t even make it to a full knot until after lunch. By the time we got to Georgetown it was almost 3.5 knots but still not enough to do anything with. We entered and anchored in Elizabeth Harbour.
It’s a wonderful, large area and there are several anchorages with good holding. If the winds are westerly, all the boats migrate to Kidd Cove and if it’s an easterly, they come back again to Volleyball Beach or Hamburger Beach.