CODA STILL HERE IN THE BAHAMAS 2025 (60).

 CODA : Exploring Elbow Cay, Bahamas.

10 March 2025 

Hope Town,  Abacos, Bahamas   

The Atlantic Ocean never looked so good.  Perfect sized waves for a couple of surfers.

Marc-  Sue and I brought our bikes into shore by dinghy today to do some land exploration.  I had thought Elbow Cay was kind of flat.  I assure you it is rather a series of rolling hills, and the Queens Highway tends to meander about rather than follow a route as the crow flies.  Part of the highway is dug out of solid coral.  We went out to Tahiti Beach at the southern end of the island.

First we came upon a sailboat repair yard at the end of Hope Town harbor.  It is a a sand lot used by the local racing fleet of traditional boats and their crews.  The following photos depict these most interesting racing boats.  A common problem seems to be frequent replacement of the barn door rudders.  The plank on oak frame hulls are covered in a heavy layer of a resin based filler. The result is a very smooth and slick looking finish.  

Barn door rudder.

These boats have very tall masts and a very long boom.  They only carry one sail.

Each island group in the Bahamas have their own boats and compete.

We discovered a lot of construction going on in Elbow Cay.  Most of this appears to me to be repairs from Hurricane Dorian in 2019 that devastated the Island.  Much of the Island is rebuilt and some new development is also taking place.  We visited the rebuilt Abacos Inn at White Sound.  The Inn has property on both the ocean and on the bay side.  

New England style architecture here at the Abacos Inn.

White Sound.

Ocean side at Abacos Inn.  Good day for foil board sailing?  Yes, it was very windy.

Amazing.

Tahiti Beach.  Large public park with palm forest and lots of pinkish sand beach.

Tahiti Beach.

Sue:  I had no idea there was so much more to this island.  There are a couple of little restaurants and convenient stores out at the southern end of the island, along with the Abacos Inn.  The homes are very high end.  Some are in developments, and others are single homes here and there.  Someone wanted ice cream and he found a nice shop with great ice cream.  The bike ride was very nice.  The colors in the photos might have been better had it been the usual super sunny day.  The wind was still blowing 20+ knots today, but has finally calmed down this evening.  Tomorrow we will head North to Green Turtle Cay.