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Norman Cay, Exuma Islands, Bahamas

sailawayblog
Feb 23, 2016
3 min read

We made it to the Exuma Islands of the Bahamas! Hooray!

The Exumas are a chain of over 300 cays of the Bahamas, located 30 miles southeast of Nassau. The Exumas are known for being some of the best cruising and sailing destinations in the world, with sapphire blue water, white sand beaches, and magnificent, serene anchorages to access it all.

Norman Cay was our first island experience of the Exuma Islands of the Bahamas, and it surely was unbelievable!

We pulled into Norman Cay, and our jaws dropped in awe of the beauty of the anchorage. The water was electric blue, and the sand was shining white. Palms and green pine trees dotted the shorelines. There was a white sand island to the starboard with a lone coconut palm bobbing around on it. It looked like we were surrounded by postcard photos.

We spent a little over a week at Norman Cay, enjoying the insane beauty. We couldn’t believe our eyes as we dived in the coral reefs, combed the endless beaches, inspected caves, and hiked trails. We joked that each day at Norman was our best sightseeing day yet.

We did a lot of fishing, trying to stock up on fresh food before our next stop, which would put us in the Exumas Park portion of the islands, where fishing or lobstering are prohibited. However we couldn’t catch a fish to save our lives, except on our way into the anchorage, where we caught this huge barracuda!

Although we had little luck fishing, we dived for lobsters and had some success, namely this big guy!

In the center of Norman Cay is a breathtaking saltwater water lake, called Norman’s Pond. The pond is protected on all sides, and is basically a hurricane hole where the water stays calm even in the 30 knot winds we experienced. We would have loved to move Wanderlust into the protected pond for anchoring, but the shallow, narrow entrance next to some daunting jagged rocks deterred us. Instead, we took the dinghy inside to marvel at the clear water, exotic coconut palms, and spikey rock caves.

Ruca chased stingrays and coconuts to her heart’s desire, and then snoozed most evenings away.

Fascinatingly, the cay had famously once been controlled by a drug lord in the 1970s. The island was used as a sorting base where drugs were received from South America, organized and packaged, and sent on to North America. The operation was squashed in the late 70s, but evidence of the drug operation is everywhere. Little run down huts and houses line the beach. A huge sunken airplane in the anchorage legendarily was incoming when the feds showed up for the raid, and crashed into the water rather than be taken by the police.

Ben, Ruca and I spent most of our days outdoors at Norman Cay, soaking up the sunshine after our rough cold front in Nassau.

But, inevitably, another cold front moved through, forcing us indoors. We passed a couple days inside the boat by baking cookies, catching up on cleaning and repairs, reading, and plotting our next destinations.