Black Point

6/3-5/2021

After departing Staniel Cay we moved south about 6 miles and anchored near the town of Black Point.  This is on Great Guana Cay, but it is not the island with the same name in the Abacos where we stayed previously.  This is an out island with no expatriate residents, so the population is strictly Bahamian.  They are the friendliest people we have ever met.

We are anchored in a cove near the town, with a view of some of the houses shown below.  Many houses are under construction, with progress being about the same as I achieve in my own building projects.  The photo shows a sailboat on the left side.  Later in the afternoon the man on the sailboat got into his dinghy, cast off from the anchored sailboat, and then was unable to get the engine started.  He tried to row, but was losing ground in the wind.  I watched this for a bit, and then jumped in our dinghy to get him back to his sailboat.  He was seriously intoxicated, and had been arguing with his girlfriend.  I got him back to safety, and he wanted me to mediate his argument with the girlfriend.  Of course I wasn’t having any part of that.  Later, after dark, I saw him raise the anchor and motor off towards Staniel Cay.  I can only hope he didn’t have a problem in the dark.

Black Point is a small town with limited economy.  Many people commute by boat to Staniel Cay, and others operate restaurants to serve lunch to day trip tour boats from George Town.  Others work in local construction, but beyond that there isn’t much here.  Still the people are really friendly and seem happy to have us visiting.  The photos below show some of the town and local government services.  They also have a power plant with diesel generators, a cell phone tower, and maybe a reverse osmosis water plant.  I never saw that, but they have to get water somewhere.

While we were at Black Point we meet up with our friends Steve and Diane Koch on their boat Aurora.  They are long time cruisers, and spend several months each year in the Bahamas.  Together we rented a golf cart and drove around the island.  Some of the photos from this excursion are below.

The photo above was taken on the windward side of the island.  A moderate southeast wind was blowing (15-20 knots), and the waves were fairly strong out in the Exuma Gulf.  Our anchorage, on the leeward side of the island, was relatively calm in these conditions. 

We did visit one small cove (by land) that is on the windward side of the island that is shown above.  It is well protected, and had only small waves this day.  The story of this cove, as I understand it, was that many years ago before cruisers regularly visited this area a retired dentist lived aboard his sailboat and visited these islands while providing dental care to the residents.  He anchored in this cove during a hurricane and wrote a book on the experience.

In the last photo from our golf cart tour, shown above, you can see boats anchored in a quiet cove.  Great Guana Cay is the largest island in the Exumas, and only a small portion of it is accessible by land.  We drove through the limited road system, and this cove was at the southern limit of the road. 

Finally, the photos below show one of the highlights of Black Point.  The town is famous for several restaurants including Lorraine’s Café.  The food was good, but the real highlight was buying loaves of coconut bread from her mother.  That was really tasty.