Best Beaches

Best Beaches
Do you have periods of time in your life that you remember happily and languidly, where your memory is a gorgeous dream state, moments surrounded by shiny light, like sunshine reflecting off turquoise water? The days we spent in Lucaya were like that. Amazing walks on gorgeous white sand beaches, swims in crystal clear water, and a bit of snorkeling around reefs just offshore, accessible by dinghy... 

The best beaches on Grand Bahama Island (according to me) are on the long, gorgeous strip of beach between the Bell Channel and the next channel west. This strip of long, low angle beach includes Lucaya Beach and Coral Beach. (Check out the video of Coral beach on FB or IG.)

The next best beach is the small part of Taino beach that’s just east of the Bell Channel. It also has lovely white sand and beautifully clear water, along with interesting coral and tidal pools at one end. 




Where we were staying in Lucaya wasn’t a great place to invite friends to join us…and so we didn’t. The marina we were staying at, the Grand Bahama Yacht Club, was absolutely lovely and we highly recommend coming there if arriving by boat. But from there, the beach was a dinghy ride away (or not-real-nice walk). There was one of the nicer restaurants on the island accessible easily by dinghy, and we did get to have a couple of nice meals with wonderful humans we had met the last time we were in Lucaya... there wasn’t much to do, otherwise. 

We did rent a car to explore the island a bit this last time. Interestingly, the car was set to provide directions in Japanese, and the map insisted we were in Tokyo. 

We went to the national park to see a couple of blue holes and to Gold Rock Beach. (Tourist literature claimed this as the most beautiful beach on the island. I disagree (see above). :) 

Grand Bahama Island has weathered several hurricanes in the last decade, and was devastated by Dorian in 2019. Dorian arrived as a category 5 and spent hours on the island. The people and the ecology are slowly recovering. There are stripped trees in more places on the island than not, even as the underbrush regrows and the people rebuild.

Shortly after Dorian, Covid kept the tourists away. About half the people on the island are employed by tourism. Whew. There are empty hotels…empty beaches… closed restaurants, closed stores. But there are also a few lovely spots that are open, where the service and food are good, and the people are wonderfully friendly. We visited Bishop's on the way out to East End, and it was a lovely visit and beach. 

We spent just shy of two weeks in Lucaya. It was difficult to say goodbye to those beaches and that gorgeous water—saying goodbye to beautiful places, beings, and ideas is hard. We’ll have more updates on our next steps soon, but if you’re following pictures on Facebook or Instagram you know we’ve headed back up north instead of going to explore more islands…

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hello Bimini

Image
Hello Bimini! (Part of the Covid/Weather/Repairs Loop) Many of you have wondered how we ended up where we've been in The Bahamas (West End, Lucaya, Alice Town) when we had planned to be in the less-populated northern Abacos! Our original plan: Sail from Lake Worth inlet near West Palm... all the way to Spanish Cay or even Green Turtle Cay to check in to the Bahamas. (Likely stopping at Great Sale Cay for a night to anchor and sleep but not get off the boat as we would still be in customs quarantine.) Then enjoy the Abacos, and perhaps if there was time, keep heading further south. Instead, we're currently in (beautiful) Bimini. What actually happened (/is happening) is a route based on Covid, weather, and some needed repairs. Covid requirements in early January when we wanted to cross from Lake Worth included a rapid PCR test within 72 hours/3 days of arrival, filing for a health visa after we had the rapid PCR results and then waiting up to 24 hours for a health visa approval....
Read more

Up the Florida Coast: Lucaya to Port Canaveral

Image
Up the Florida Coast: Lucaya to Port Canaveral In what seems ages ago, back at the end of March, we headed from Lucaya, Grand Bahama back over to Florida. We were en route to Charleston, our summer home for SV Banksy--where we are now. The trip up the Florida coast was lovely, and in general, we've had some incredible sailing, friend visits, and lots of time on lovely beaches. This first "Up the Coast" post covers Lucaya to Port Canaveral.  It was hard to leave the  Lucaya beaches , but on March 29, in the lovely still darkness of early morning, we left Lucaya via the small but beautiful Bell Channel. We had our underwater lights on, and the crystal clear water of the channel provided one of the oddest, coolest things I’ve seen while we were traveling this way: There were two sharks lying ( sleeping ?) right next to each other on the bottom of the channel. One had a sucker fish hanging out on top of it. Sleeping sharks to start our trip?! Wonderful and odd. (Wish I'd ...
Read more

Hello St. Augustine

Image
SV Banksy: Hello St. Augustine It was a beautiful, unseasonably warm day yesterday when we arrived in St. Augustine. Warm sun—hot, even, in the afternoon—and 83F/28C. We walked across the Bridge of Lions and wandered around the outside of Castillo de San Marcos (long waiting line to go in). We stopped for delicious Brussels sprouts tacos at Osprey Tacos and a lovely beer at Old Coast Ales, a brewing company adjacent to Osprey. Mmmmm. In the evening we watched the annual holiday boat parade with boats lit up against the backdrop of the Christmas lights in old town St. Augustine. Lovely. To get to St. Augustine, we did a short, easy overnight from Fernandina Beach. When we have more than 10 hours of travel to do and only 10 hours of daylight, we like the overnight set up. We don’t want to leave or arrive in the dark.  I saw a dolphin in Fernandina Harbor just before we left, and I love that. Somehow seeing dolphins leading the way or playing alongside SV Banksy always feels friendly....
Read more