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Behind Crab Cay- ruins on the highest hill in center of photo

Crab Cay faces the southern part of Stocking Island and Elizabeth Island,with the harbour in between. At the southern end of Crab Cay are the teeny Red Shanks Cays that line the entrance into the Red Shanks anchorages which are basically behind (in the lee of) Crab Cay. Very close behind Crab Cay is Great Exuma. When the wind blows out of the south or south-west boats often seek shelter in the more shallow, protected anchorages behind Crab Cay.

Elizabeth Harbour- here’s the lay of the land. Elizabeth Island is next in line to the south (right) of Stocking Island- only a tiny piece shows on this chart view

Basics: Big bucks ECO development on Crab Cay- now connected to Great Exuma by a lovely bridge that keeps boats like us from going there via the short route. $800 Million project budget. Several corporations involved- to be built to the highest standards.

Phase 1- stopped 2009. A marina for yachts to 300 ft and a Harbor Village with Resort and Spa was in process.. and that’s as far as it went. The marina basin dredged and pilings stacked on shore ready to use.

Sir William Walker Ruins: very little info on-line, but here’s what we found. S/v Little Sister had told us about the ruins years ago, but we never walked up.

So in one easy trip ashore we toured ruins- old and recent. The developers of Crab Cay planned to destroy the Walker Ruins- no surprise there but the one good thing the Bahamian govt did was to demand that the ruins be preserved, and access allowed to anyone. We saw obvious signs of shoring up walls and windows and of clearing the land of the main house area, as well as the short rocky path from the development’s road to the ruins.

Walker was a Loyalist who came here in the late 1700s and built a stone house and botanical garden atop Crab Cay. The trees and exotic plants were started from cuttings brought back to this area by Her Majesty’s Ships that traveled throughout the Atlantic and Pacific- think HMS Bounty. The house was impressive, considering the effort involved in building a stone structure on an island off an island in the 1700s! The site contained high stone walls, peaked entrance pillars surrounding a botanical garden, and circular platforms held cannons used to ward off……. Guess…. Pirates… of the Caribbean- right?

Abandoned Crab Cay Marina & Resort- guess they wanted visible proof of proper workmanship

Cement plant on Crab Cay. Put to good use for a short time…

Motor yachts anchored in dredged marina basin which opens to Elizabeth Harbour. Dredge pipe still in place

Kitchen room of Walker ruins on Crab Cay. Overlooks the backside of Crab (facing west- not the harbour)

Oven lined with bricks

Walker ruins- another structure across from the kitchen area

A separate dwelling from the main house- looking out toward Elizabeth Harbor

I think you might agree, after reading this and looking at the photos, that Sir William was far more successful than the ambitious developers of Crab Cay.

Rolle Cay is quite small and it offers a window view to the southern section of Sand Dollar Beach. Remains of abandoned “resort” perched on either side of the opening

Elizabeth Harbour is huge and contains many anchoring locations, most of them named, such as Monument, Sand Dollar, Honeymoon Beach, Kidd Cove, Red Shanks. Dolphins often come through, as do sharks. Rays hang out in the shallows off Volleyball Beach but it’s the turtles we really love to watch. You might spot them anywhere, but where the water isn’t so deep is your best bet, and for us that spot is behind Rolle Cay (renamed by us to Sisters Beach as s/v Little Sister and m/v Twin Sisters can be found there quite often)

For a day or two I stood on deck (well, not ALL day), camera in hand determined to digitally capture a few acceptable photos. The sun had to be right, the water not too wavy and my slow shutter camera needed to behave. That is, I needed to press the button at precisely the right second. My camera has lots of settings but as you might guess I only use a few. One setting automatically adjusts for the scene and lighting (that’s the gold symbol) the green symbol next to the gold will do a burst of 3 to 5 shots but the quality may not be as good as with the gold setting. For the turtles I mostly used the burst setting.

Turtles are not sociable and the four or five that often swam around hardly ever came close to another one. The water depth ranged from 4ft to 6ft and if not too windy, you could easily see them as they swam, nibbled turtle grass 🙂 or napped. Every so often- oh maybe every 4mins- you’d have a photo-op when one would surface to breathe. Typically they’d take 2 to 3 breaths, then swim back down, so I had 15-20 seconds to press that button a few times.

I watched, I waited, I had that camera ready if one was close enough. The zoom is very good and I knew I’d be successful with enough patience. Russ even snapped a picture of me at the bow but do you really want to see my backside? Nah. But hopefully you will appreciate my efforts at turtle photography. 🙂

Backside view- they don’t always cooperate you know

Love seeing how they pose so classic turtle-like !

Even better! And when they need to move, they go fast. The smaller turtles are the most skittish and quick!

One of 5-6 turtles that hang out by Rolle Cay. One of the best of, oh, 50 shots

P.S- just as I was working on this post (anchored in what is called the Litter Box) Russ calls out that a turtle was at the stern. Grabbed the camera, found it would not turn on- went dead somehow 😦 and I missed a fabulous shot of one coming up to breathe inches from the steps. Oh well, nice to see one today.

Here’s a few more I forgot to add in: