Highbourne to Chub Cay Resort and Marina

On Sunday morning, May 2nd, we prepared to get underway, we were leaving our friends from Liberty Call and Patricia Marie, we were heading to Highbourne Cay.  We passed our friends to give one more wave 👋 goodbye. I think there may have been a few tears 😢 from Rob and myself. 

We had a fairly uneventful journey from Black Point to Highbourne, underway about 6 and 1/2 hours averaging 7.9 knots 🪢.  Our plan was to get a slip at the Highbourne Cay Marina, when Rob called they had no slips available, imagine that. As we passed the marina, to go to our anchorage, we noticed how empty the marina was. 

Black Point to Highbourne

Worked out, we went back to where we anchored on the way south. Perfect spot for our last sunset in the Exumas.

Last sunset in Exumas

Next day, we headed towards Nassau, our plan was to anchor ⚓ in the Nassau harbor, after reading the reviews we decided it would be best not to.  We passed Atlantis, pretty impressive, even from the water.  We were not getting a slip in Nassau because we would need to obtain a Covid test prior to moving to another island  🏝.  We already had non refundable reservations for Chub Cay Club Marina.   

We traveled just over 48 nautical miles in a little over 6 hours.  We practically surfed 🏄‍♂️ most of the day.  We made our way back to Old Fort Bay anchorage.  After dropping the anchor ⚓ we determined we were going to be rocking most of the night, again.  

Highbourne to Old Fort (Nassau)

While making dinner, chicken parm with spaghetti and sautéed spinach 😋, I seen a sailboat arriving it looked like Patricia Marie. We weren't sure it was them as the boat kept going very close to shore, very unusual. 

We watched as what looked to be a police 🚔 boat come up alongside and circle them. It was the Patricia Marie and come to find out they were taking on water and their bilge pump could not keep up. They called the Coastguard, hence the police boat.  

Sunset off Nassau

Tony figured out his problem, where he thought the water was coming in. The next morning Rob rowed over (remember dinghy motor not working) with some spare parts to assist Tony with fixing his problem. 

Almost there!

We pulled up the anchor and headed for Chub Cay Club Marina.  I felt bad for leaving, but Rob assured me they were fine and the issue was fixed.  The Patricia Marie was going to spend another night and head to Morgan's Bluff.

We arrived at Chub Cay Club Marina and hailed the dockmaster, we were told to switch to 68 and standby. So we did as told, we did circles until a large fishing vessel came barreling in and the dockmaster told him just come on in.  Now of course we have to wait for the fishing boat to get tied up, Rob has no patience at all at this point.  Everyone is on "Island Time".

The facility is nice, floating docks, pool with swim up bar, beautiful beach, ship store, club house, etc. We were happy to be in a slip with power and water. We finally had ice, Rob was happy.

Chub Cay Clubhouse

Our first adventure to the Nauti Rooster 🐓, the local bar and grill, was interesting. As I said before, everyone is on "Island Time", Bruce (bar tender) seemed very annoyed 😒 that we entered the establishment. It was so bad we decided to not even stay, but before leaving, we did meet 2 interesting young ladies that were crew on a 110 ft. yacht.

We figured we might as well splurge and go the Club House Restaurant for dinner. We made our reservations (had to have for dinner) for 1800 (6pm).   Our waitress was Wendy, she was very professional and friendly. We started off outside on the veranda sipping our martinis.  We determined it was way to hot to be outside. Wendy was very accommodating with moving us inside and the restaurant was empty, not sure why the reservation was required.  

I ordered the fresh local catch (grilled snapper) with buttered wild rice pilaf, grilled broccolini and a cilantro tomato jam.  It was very delicious!  Rob ordered the classic Bahamian Cracked Conch dinner, which came with locally harvested conch that was lightly battered and fried, peas and rice (really beans not peas), island style coleslaw and a coconut calypso dipping sauce.  My meal was much better, just sayin!

Let's go take a walk, we always pick the hottest time of day to go for a walk, which ends up being a death march.  Of course full on sun, no water, and no shade on the sandy road.  As we were on our way back, thank goodness a local came by in a golf cart and offered us a ride,  I would have fainted from heat exhaustion if he had not.

We found a beach!

I liked the wall.

Random driveway.

We of course got in some pool time! We met several other cruisers.  

We also decided to give the Nauti Rooster another try.  So glad we did, we spent happy hour with the locals, shot some pool🎱 ( I won both games), one local tried to give me tips on which ball and pocket, but I completely missed.  He then told me what I did wrong.  

This shirt was from the Maryland restaurant Suicide Bridge:

Chub Cay was a nice marina but a little pricier than we normally like to pay for a marina.