Black Point Settlement, Great Guana Cay

At the town dock in Black Point

We moved farther south today along with Karuna SS just an hour’s cruise to Great Guana Cay, near the settlement of Black Point. It’s near Dotham Cut, where we could possibly head out to Exuma Sound enroute to Georgetown sometime in the next few days, but until then, we thought we’d explore a bit more. The settlement here is genuinely one of the out islands’ “non-touristy” communities, as there is no marina here, only a lovely anchorage. The mailboat comes weekly, although there’s a small air strip with daily flights to Nassau. The community is supposedly the largest in the northern and central Exumas, with a Batelco telephone office, police station and clinic, a school, a library, a couple of restaurants, a bar, laundromat, hardware store and two grocery stores, three churches, and a few other small businesses. Lorraine’s Cafe has wifi internet access for those with laptop computers, along with delicious Bahamian fare. Ron and I stopped in to check it out; besides the internet access (albeit it so slow as to be non-existent) there’s also a book-swap/lending library along the wall as you enter. Ron couldn’t resist having a cracked conch burger while we were there!

A Bahamian sloop under construction

We relaxed in the afternoon for a bit before we took Tingum north to Bitter Guana Cay and met their resident rock iguanas on the beach. They are prehistoric looking creatures, and rather large!! They clearly aren’t afraid of people; they approached us quite closely obviously looking for handouts.  

One of the rock iguanas on Bitter Guana Cay

The anchorage here is gorgeous: turquoise water in every direction, white sandy bottom with good holding and protected from the prevailing easterlies. We hiked up the barren, rocky hills overlooking Exuma Sound, marveling at the lunar landscape of the  limestone, worn away by the wind into twisted, razor-sharp shapes.

Rocky landscape looking out on Exuma Sound

Hiking on Bitter Great Guana

The evening was a quiet one,  just spent relaxing, watching the sunset and then a movie after dinner. Nothing fancy, but the location is just right!