Saturday, January 18, 2020

Highborne Cay

Friday January 17th we pulled up anchor and moved 6 miles from Allen Cay to Highborne Cay.  There is a marina here with good protection and the wind was predicted to blow pretty hard over Friday night.  Staying in the marina for two nights would be much more comfortable than being at anchor in strong winds.

View of the entrance to Highborne Cay Marina

More of the marina

While on Highborne we walked the eastern beach some and road our bikes around the island.   The wind had the seas stirred up pretty good on Saturday.

Entrance to the east beach

I found a few beach treasures (see picture below).  I did not keep the cool purple lacy coral.  The shell on the bottom is a Helmut shell.  These can be found from North Carolina throughout the Caribbean and Mexico.  The creature that lives in this shell feeds primarily at night and loves to eat sea urchins.  I think the long one at the top is a type of cowrie shell.  There are over 250 different species of cowrie which is essentially a type of sea snail.  They range from the size of a grain of rice to over 12 inches long and all sizes in between.  Each snail when alive actually envelopes the shell and draws itself inside only when threatened.  Each cowrie shell is like a snowflake in that no two shells are exactly alike.


Here are some close-ups of my cowrie shell



There is another beach on the west side of the island that we stopped by on our bikes.


There are several shaded cabanas and beach chairs with umbrellas on this beach for guests of the marina/resort.  There are also larger cabanas with grills available to rent.

Back at the marina the supply boat was just leaving after unloading.

There were also quite a group of Nurse sharks swimming around the dock


Highborne is a jumping off spot, also known locally as the Gateway to the Exumas.  From here we plan to anchor off Norman's Cay and then enter the Exuma Land and Sea Park for several days.  I am hoping for some settled wind so we can get in some snorkeling in the next few days and go exploring in our new dinghy
.

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