No Treasure in Treasure Cay

Great Guana Cay to Treasure Cay – 9 nautical miles sailed, 2 miles in dinghy, 1 kilometre walked

I visited Treasure Cay once, over 25 years ago. I came for a weekend trip with my brother Curtis, two Aussie buddies Johnny and Todd, and Steve from Scotland who I worked with in Nassau, all of whom remain good friends to this day. We had an amazing time as we performed death-defying stunts, drank one bar completely out of Kalik Gold, had our rental boat catch fire, and trampled all over Treasure Cay, which was a tropical paradise with restaurants, bars, boat rentals, stacks of condos and apartments, luxury homes, and loads of crazy tourists. We had a lot of fun here.

Today I returned, and the community is still reeling from Hurricane Dorian. The first thing Ana and I saw was the remains of a waterfront bar and restaurant, which the boys and I visited during our trip and dropped some serious coin at on Kaliks and conch fritters, but it was now an ugly scar on the land and a miserable reminder of what Hurricane Dorian did here in 2019. The densely packed housing corridors and commercial centres were now sparse, with small clusters of new housing slowly growing back, but the entire area was unrecognizable to me.

Waddington had rolled in early afternoon so Ben and Kate joined us for a walk around town. Besides the rotting and rusting destruction and empty lots, we did find one newly built strip plaza with a liquor store, real estate agency, small café, ladies clothing store, and a convenience store. We also found a spectacular beach with a surprising number of people on it, some walking up and down the two mile stretch while others just sat in the sand. We stood for a very long time, feet in the water, just looking out on the ocean, talking.

I felt more than a little bummed out visiting Treasure Cay so wasn’t in the greatest of mood, but my temperament improved markedly when Kate and Ben joined us for dinner and extended sundowner drinks in the comfort of SeaLight’s cockpit. Ana made a spectacular veggie pasta and rack of garlic breads that we demolished, leaving about 12 noodles of pasta and 7 grams of sauce for a midnight snack later. We had a great time with our friends and are going to be very sad to be leaving them as they have another month to go in Bahamas while we plan to start a long sail back to northern Florida on Saturday morning, weather pending (as usual). We may see them along the way north, but we may not. In either case, I know we’ll be hanging out with Ben and Kate somewhere in Canada before long. We haven’t seen Kevin and Ana for a few days as Kevin is holed up at Man-O-War Cay and Ana took a short trip to Florida to visit family, but are going to miss them too and suspect our paths will cross soon, in the US, Canada, or elsewhere.

For now, we have zipped SeaLight up tight in advance of the strong west and north-west winds due to arrive in the middle of the night and persist into tomorrow. We are hoping to get out on the dinghy to do some exploring, but that will depend entirely on the sea state as it could be too choppy. We’ll see.