December 22, 2012
We have spent the last few days at the upscale Highbourne Cay Marina in the Northern Exumas. If you are a marina guest, you can walk around the island during the day only. You are restricted to the marina grounds after dark; this is to provide security and privacy for the island residents from the ‘rogue’ sailors. Highbourne was abandoned until fairly recently when the marina was built and development started throughout the island. There are a lot of private signs, but the development that we saw was all first class.
In the past, we have been a bit disappointed by the beaches in the Bahamas, since their beauty is often spoiled by the trash that is left behind. Although the water is so clear, showing different colors as it deepens, we often say that we prefer many of the beaches on the West Coast of Florida to the Bahamian beaches. But, Highbourne Cay has a beautiful beach as shown in the following picture.
Off Highbourne’s east beach, you can find reefs called stromatolites. Unlike most reefs which are coral, stromatolites have been built up by blue-green microorganisms. Stromatolites are the oldest known macrofossil, dating back 3 billion years , and provide about 80% of the fossil record. The microorganisms that produced the ancient reefs provided the earth’s oxygen. Although thought to be extinct, living stromatolites have been recently found in Australia, a few place in South America and the Exumas. The Exumas is the only location where they grow in open water conditions. It is fascinating that we can look at these reefs and know that they are living relatives of reefs that existed long before man or any animals roamed the Earth. In the following picture, the stromatolites are in the foreground, the green being the oxygen-producing algae. Also, note the changing colors of the water, showing the difference in its depth.
Although Highbourne Cay marina is quite expensive, we were considering it our reward for finishing the 500-mile trip from our dock in Bradenton to the Exumas. We expected to have a few days of relaxation before we start anchoring and mooring for a few months. Unfortunately, the first day or two were far from relaxing. When we hooked up the power cable, the charger didn’t work. Unfortunately, there was a power outage 10 minutes before we left Bimini, so we weren’t sure whether that had caused a problem with our system, or there was some other issue. After Tom spent hours testing and trying to find the problem, we think that it was because the voltage was too high for our Magnum charger to accept. For a few minutes, the voltage declined to a level that the charger would ‘qualify’ it, and we had AC power. But, that was short-lived. We are not positive that is the only problem, but we do have a friend with the same charger who had the same problem, and only at the Highbourne Cay Marina. It will likely be weeks or months before we dock again and know for sure this is the problem, but we won’t worry about it until then. We will update this entry when we confirm that it was a problem with electrical supply at Highbourne.
Tomorrow, we will be headed south to the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park for a week or ten days. We are looking forward to exploring this relatively untouched area.
Docked at Highbourne Cay Marina
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