Captain's Choice blog: The Eleutheras

Eleuthera refers to both a single island and to its associated group of smaller islands in the Bahamas. It is long and thin, 110 miles long and in some places no more than a mile wide. The Eleuthera's east coast is continuous offshore reefs, except Dunmore Town, and the beaches (100 miles of beaches) are filled with pink/white sand and clear blue waters. The west coast has small towns and harbors that protect you from the prevailing easterlies.
The Bahamas became an independent commonwealth in 1973, retaining the British monarch as its head of state. In terms of gross domestic product per capita, The Bahamas is one of the richest countries in the Americas, following the US and Canada. This is more obvious on some islands and hard to believe on others.

After being moored/anchored for 9 nights we stayed 2 nights at Cape Eleuthera Resort and Marina. When we were in Florida and the fishermen would come in, the pelicans would congregate to get the fish scraps. Not so here in the Bahamas, Sunday night when they were cleaning the fish the sharks were making a ruckus trying to get the scraps.
It was a perfect day Monday with light winds and abundant sun, so we got our cleaning finished (Captains Choice needed a good cleaning inside and out) and headed to the beach and then the pool. As we were sitting by the beach a yacht went by and made it's entrance into the marina. One of my favorite things to do is look up the name of the vessel and see who the owners are. I check to see price tag, if it's chartered, pictures if any...I guess you could call me a yacht snoop. To my surprise this wasn't just any old yacht, this yacht belongs to Dick and Betsy DeVos (Amway and Secretary of Education) and Seaquest is worth $40 million. That had me researching for a little while as I dug up some fun facts. We walked by several times hopeful we would get invited for docktails but no such luck. Ha!

Next up on the Eleuthera tour was Governor's Harbour, 29 miles, where we anchored in 15' of water along with 10 sailboats and 1 yacht. The chart books said the holding was poor but we had other reports that the newer generation anchors (Spade, Ultra, Mantus, Rocna, etc, which we have) hold good. On our second attempt we held and we were off to the town by dinghy to explore. Governor's Harbor is Eleuthera's capital and home to govenment offices. It was the original capital of the Bahamas followed by Harbour Island and eventually Nassau. First up was lunch at Buccaneer's where I was adventourous and split the cracked conch burger with Mark, it was tasty. After lunch we walked up the hill both ways to get to the beautiful pink sand beach on the atlantic side. The waves were crashing, definitely a good day to be on the harbor side. There were some beautiful houses, rentals and the bougainvillea was in bloom. This small town was a little more touristy than any of the towns we have stopped at so far with a few shops selling Bahamian crafts and gifts.

Mother nature provided a free boat wash overnight (they average 340 sunny days a year so we shouldn't have much more rain) and she fooled those weathermen...S winds 18 mph not SE and light, which we found out after we left the anchorage Wednesday. Mark had just been commenting Tuesday night that the engines could use some excercise at a little faster pace...no time like the present as he kicked her up for our 50 mile trek to Spanish Wells. As we approached the entrance to Spanish Wells we could see a lot of what we call shrimp boats. Treadwell, our dockmaster, said they are for crawfish (better know to us as spiny lobster). Actually Spanish Wells is famous for it's fishing fleet, which supplies over half of the Bahamas' commercial crop of lobster, conch and fish.
The marina we are staying at was updated in 2015 with new docks, bathroom facilites and a nice restaurant. We ended up with another free boatwash from mother nature Wednesday night, and did it pour. I think this was the most rain we have gotten in months. I spoke to one of the locals and she said they were in a draught and all of that rain would really help. She hasn't cut her grass in 2 months and hopes that rain will green things up!
We walked around the town and the main mode of transportation is golf carts, they are zipping around everywhere. The supply boat comes in on Thursday and we were informed the grocery store stocks their shelves Thursday night for the Friday morning rush for fresh produce. We plan on going when they open and then positioning for our crossing to the Abacos.