2 Nights at Great Guana

2 Nights at Great Guana

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Stats for February 19, 2019

Origin: Blackpoint

Destination: Great Guana

Distance: 9.5 miles

Speed: 7.4 mph

Time on the Move: 1 hour and 16 minutes

As soon as we got the anchor to set at Great Guana we loaded up in the dinghy to head to the beach. Colin brought the cheapo Minion kite we’ve had with us since July to try and it provided great entertainment for the boys.

All loaded up and heading to a new shore!!

There was a big limestone shelf hanging over the beach at one end, almost forming a cave at low tide, so we walked down to check it out.

Hayley helped me spell INNTW with rocks under the biggest part of the shelf.
Colin put his crocs to the test and did some rock climbing.
Tobin found some cool creatures, including this starfish.
Mike was nice enough to pull the kids on their boogie boards through the shallows during our “walk.”

The next day we went searching for a trail leading to a cave we read about on Active Captain (a site where boaters leave reviews of all things boat related). The cave was really cool with a large opening leading to a slight downhill where half of the lower section is actually a little pond. Some of the reviews say that you can swim in the pond, but after seeing it, there is no way I would want to swim in there. We saw some little shrimp creatures crawling in the water and nothing else, but it was still kind of creepy to me. We did see some bats at the top of the cave who were somewhat unhappy that we were interrupting their daytime slumber. The kids were a little unsure at first, but then they were all troopers!!

We always send Mike first on adventures like this. He was unsure of what could be inside, so he made some racket entering the cave to scare anything out that could be in there.
Inside the cave, you can see the bucket set up to catch the freshwater drip.
Tobin was the bravest one of us because he went into the pond up to his knees or so. The water was very clear, but the pond wrapped around the whole back of the cave, so we weren’t quite sure if there was anything else in there besides the few shrimp we saw.
We made some bat friends!! Even though the bats flew around a little, the kids weren’t freaked out. It led to a great discussion about echolocation.
Whew!! Was it hot and humid in that cave!!

After the cave adventure, we headed down a different path that led to a beach on the wavy sound side of the Cay. We were thankful to be out of the humid, stagnant cave!

Part of the path we followed had us stepping on these crates and boards to cross a swampy area. Luckily, the path was pretty easy to distinguish.

There was a lot of garbage, boats, and SHOES washed up in this area.
Staring down to the crashing water below. Colin is the most cautious about climbing out of all of us, and if he thinks someone is too close to the edge, he makes sure to tell them. This helps me feel comfortable when I see images like this. If he is up there, I know there are plenty more rock ledges in front of him, making him feel safe, that I just can’t see from my angle.

After the beach adventure, we had one more interesting area to explore. There is an area called Oven Rock that juts out into the banks side that we wanted to walk around. We found this cool arch in the limestone and an abandoned osprey nest on top of the rock.


An old osprey nest. What an amazing view she had high up on that rock!!
We found several amazing creatures under this rock–a brittle star, loads of hermit crabs, and something that “has tentacles for sure!”

The sand on this beach looked like vermicelli that you’d see in Rice a Roni. It was definitely different “sand” than we saw anywhere else!

That night when we got back to our boat, a swell was coming through the anchorage that rocked our boat side to side pretty good. We felt it in the morning, but hoped it would go away. Then we went adventuring all day, so we didn’t worry about it. However, as soon as that sun went down, I really wished we had moved to a different spot. It was the kind of swell that is just big enough to be annoying and cause problems, maybe a foot or so on the beam. Cups and plates slid off tables, chairs tipped over, we got a few bruises walking around, and the boat creaked with all the rocking. Needless to say, we were ready to get out of there by morning!!

Tobin was super ready to be tucked in with all his buddies after such a long day adventuring! Luckily the rolling didn’t bother the kids when they were sleeping!

Thanks for reading and following along on our amazing adventures!!

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