Honor Bars & Downwind Sailing
After New Bight, we continued north along Cat Island to Fernandez Bay. It’s a tiny cove with a few cottages along the beach and room for 4-5 boats to anchor. Our research told us there was a small tiki bar and we decided to head to shore to check it out.
The tiki bar is an “honor bar”, where guests serve themselves from a variety of wine, beer, liquor and sodas, keeping track on a check pad. It’s remarkably well stocked and organized. When you’re done, you leave cash for what you consumed.
It’s noticeably quiet, without music or TVs. The bar area has great shade and overlooks the beach. This little bay is spectacular and our favorite kind of place to visit!
It’s funny how something so simple feels so unique. They wouldn’t keep it this way if it didn’t work. We are so far removed from the world in these out islands and people are out here just doing the right thing. It restores a bit of faith in humanity.
Cat Island was incredible and we would have stayed longer to explore. Our 120-day visas were quickly coming to an end and knowing we could only renew them in certain locations, we had to keep moving.
There are only certain locations where you can request visa extensions and Governor’s Harbor in Eleuthera was the spot we had to get to. To further complicate things, the extension request must be completed within the week prior to the expiration date.
So, we begrudgingly left Cat Island, sailing to Half Moon Bay on Little San Salvador for a quick stopover on our way to Eleuthera. Half Moon Bay is a cruise ship stop with activities like horseback riding on the beach, a bar in a pirate ship, cabana rentals, etc. We expected this stop to be less than ideal but it surpassed expectations.
If Fernandez Bay is our ideal spot, Half Moon is the exact opposite! Construction of a new cruise ship dock was underway and landscapers had their chainsaws and blowers running all night. A very stinky trash fire and side swell were the icing on the cake. It was easily one of the worst sleeps we’ve ever had on the boat.
Luckily, it was only for one night and we continued on to Eleuthera early the next morning, passing the incoming cruise ship on our way.
We had a really amazing downwind run to Eleuthera. We arrived at Cape Eleuthera (our planned stop) around noon but since the wind was so ideal, we decided to push forward another 25 miles to Governor’s Harbor.
If only every sail was a downwind sail. We could really get used to this!
Anchored before dark, we were ready for a good night sleep and excited to explore another cute town. Most importantly, we were where we needed to be to renew our visas, three days early.
Check out all the trip details with the SeaPeople link below:
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