January 25th – January 29th
We had a pleasant sail south and arrived at the entrance to Normans Cay in early afternoon. The sky was clear and the sun was almost directly overhead, providing excellent lighting for us to ‘read the waters’ as we made our way through the narrow channel. Because most of the entrances and channels here in the Bahamas are not well marked with navigation aides (bouys) you have to pay attention to the color of the water to pick the safest path into the anchorage. Fortunately, the water is so clear here and the bottom is visible even in 20 to 30 feet of water it is possible, with practice, to be able to look at the color of the water directly ahead of you and more or less determine the depth – a deep blue color indicates deeper water, a grassy bottom will have a greenish tint, bright white water marks a shallow sandy bottom, and coral heads are dark blue, almost black in appearance.
As we make our way in or out of the anchorage, one of us is up on the bow, ‘reading the water’ and pointing out any hazards to the one who is back at the helm steering. Our charts do show a ‘recommended’ path into most harbors, but also very clearly state to only use the chart as a reference and that ‘visual piloting is required’ for navigating the channel. Although it is intimidating at first, we are getting more and more confident in our ability to read the water and we made it into the anchorage without incident.
Normans Cay is a few miles long, about a mile wide, and except for a few private residences, is basically uninhabited. It does have a small, functioning, and active airstrip that is used by guests staying at the resort on nearby Wax Cay. Apparently, they fly into Normans and then are shuttled over to the resort by boat. There are a few private residences on Normans and one restaurant, Macduff’s, which doesn’t open for the season until February 1st. We were there on Jan 29.
In the 1980’s Normans Cay was infamously used as an island home and base for drug trafficking. They would fly drugs in from South America and then use boats to transport and smuggle them into the US. Years ago, at least one of the planes didn’t make a successful landing or take off and crashed in the harbor where we were anchored, and the wreckage is still lying on the bottom in only about 12 to 15 feet of water. At low tide, parts of the plane are actually above water.
Because the wreck is in such shallow water and the plane is largely still in one piece, it is a favorite snorkeling site for many people visiting the Exumas. Several times a day during our stay in Normans, charter boats or tenders from the larger mega yachts would come in, anchor close to the wreckage, and let their passengers snorkel the wreck. Even though the anchorage was fairly open and generally uncrowded, at least once a day someone would anchor rather close to us. I guess we had secured a preferred spot for wreck diving!
We did manage to get to shore several times to explore the island and walk around. On the south end of the island there is a marina/resort that is being built and looks like it will be very nice once its finished. Seeing how it’s apparently been under construction for the past 8 years we’re not sure if it will ever be finished/open! We asked one of the workers when the project will be finished and he said he didn’t know – that was our first clue as to ‘not in the near future will it be finished’.
Two photos of marina still under construction after 8 years. It looks nice now, can’t wait to come back in a few years to see the progress!
On our walk we found the famous MacDuff’s resort and restaurant, but it was closed. We did speak with an employee who was on site and she said that even though they weren’t open for the season to the public for another few days, they would open and serve us lunch tomorrow if we made a reservation. So we took her up on the offer, put our order in and couldn’t wait to return the following day for a nice lunch. Unfortunately, when we returned the next day, the restaurant was still closed and no one was around. Oh well, maybe we’ll have better luck on our return.
We made our way back to the beach and were able to coax the dinghy into another slow trip back to the boat. At this point we still weren’t sure what the problem was, but were glad we had decided to order a new engine!
Besides seeing the wreck and hoping to get a meal at McDuff’s, the other reason we had stopped at Normans Cay was to be in a secure anchorage when the next cold front rolled through the Bahamas in the middle of the week. We indeed found a great spot to ride out the blow. And blow it did! Overnight the sustained wind picked up to over 20 to 25 knots with gusts in the low 30’s. As predicted the wind and waves came from the west so we were thankful to have good protection from both.
After riding out the front, we pulled up our anchor the next morning and headed towards Warderick Wells Cay and the Exuma National Land and Sea Park for hopefully some great snorkeling and to grab a mooring ball in the harbor to ride out the next front that was forecasted to come early next week. Unlike the most recent front, this one was expected to last for a couple of days and bring sustained winds in the low 30’s with gusts into the 40’s. We definitely wanted to be somewhere with good protection for this front. So off to Warderick Wells we did head.
Zionsail 