Wow, it's been a week since our last post! Time seems to be flying by as we prepare to start making our way back toward West Palm Beach. We've had a great week though with a couple stops at two different marinas.
After spending Father's Day in Settlement Harbor at Nippers and Grabbers' (two of our favorite beach bars), the Welsh's moved on to a relatively new marina that Jay wanted to see. It's called Bakers Bay and it's a massive, high-end development that is covering some 500 acres on the northern tip of Great Guana. The resort is still under construction (they started 6yrs ago), but what is done is spectacular. Beautiful architecture, infinity pool, indoor gym, excellent restaurant and fun bar down by the water. The marina is a man-made basin that has 200+ slips and includes a specific "mega-yacht island". The development is comprised of multi-million $ homesites and they are catering to celebrities and the ultra-rich. Recent celebrities on the island included Derek Jeter, A-Rod, Jay Z, Beyonce, Matt Damon and Charlie Sheen (too bad we missed Charlie - now that would have been a party!). No celebrity sightings while we were there, but the place was beautiful. The staff was gracious and hospitable and you felt special just stepping off your boat onto their beautiful property. If you're interested in buying a multi-million dollar getaway in the Bahamas, google "Bakers Bay". You'll love it (man, I should be getting a commission, eh?).
From Bakers Bay, we took a short ride across the Sea of Abaco to another resort marina called Treasure Cay. We had been there a few weeks ago and met our friends the Duckworths. It was such fun, we figured we would stop in again for a night or two. As we called in on the radio to get a slip we learned that Treasure Cay was hosting the final leg (of three) of the Bahama's Billfish Tournament. This is a tournament that included ~40 BIG sportfish boats duking it out for big fish, big money and bragging rights. As we pulled into the marina basin, we stopped for fuel right behind an enormous Rybovich sport fish boat called "Double Dog". Really nice boat and a good bunch of guys. Later in the day, we saw Double Dog again as they were docked in the slip just behind us at the marina. Little did we know that we would soon be part of history...
After fueling up, we left Double Dog and motored through the boat basin to our slip and proceeded to see 3-4 turtles right beside our boat! Emily was ecstatic to finally see some turtles up close! One was probably the biggest turtle we had seen on the trip. After watching the turtles for a while we pulled into our slip and Emily proclaimed this to be "the BEST day of my life!". Great stuff!
But back to history in the making...
The marina was hopping given the fishing tournament and we all had fun the first day in Treasure Cay. Day one of the tournament was uneventful, but the second day was apparently a great day for fishing. One of the boats ("Midnight Blue") radioed in that they had caught a blue marlin that was a "keeper". Now we did not know one thing about billfish tournaments when we arrived, but we soon got the low down from some of the anglers. Apparently, billfish tournaments are all catch and release unless a boat catches a fish that beats the previous biggest fish caught that year. Thus for a boat to bring in a "keeper" in this tournament it had to be more than 115 inches long. Well "Midnight Blue" caught one that was just a bit longer than that and we all went down to the dock to see them pull a big blue marlin out of the boat at the weigh station. It was very exciting and breathtaking to see the crew celebrating and the crowd cheering what was sure to be the winning fish. It was 551 pounds!
As the excitement wore down, we learned that all the boats were in for the day except for one - Double Dog. Double Dog had hooked into a big blue and was still fighting it. Low and behold a couple hours after every other boat was back, Patrick sighted Double Dog coming into the marina - with a blue marlin flag on the outrigger! We all raced to the weigh station to see them pull out the biggest blue marlin ever caught in the Bahamas!!! It weighed 1119 pounds and this thing was ENORMOUS!
The place went wild and afterward the captain of Double Dog was quoted saying "it was a great fish and a great fight by a great crew, but we really couldn't have done it without the Per Diem crew behind us."
After spending Father's Day in Settlement Harbor at Nippers and Grabbers' (two of our favorite beach bars), the Welsh's moved on to a relatively new marina that Jay wanted to see. It's called Bakers Bay and it's a massive, high-end development that is covering some 500 acres on the northern tip of Great Guana. The resort is still under construction (they started 6yrs ago), but what is done is spectacular. Beautiful architecture, infinity pool, indoor gym, excellent restaurant and fun bar down by the water. The marina is a man-made basin that has 200+ slips and includes a specific "mega-yacht island". The development is comprised of multi-million $ homesites and they are catering to celebrities and the ultra-rich. Recent celebrities on the island included Derek Jeter, A-Rod, Jay Z, Beyonce, Matt Damon and Charlie Sheen (too bad we missed Charlie - now that would have been a party!). No celebrity sightings while we were there, but the place was beautiful. The staff was gracious and hospitable and you felt special just stepping off your boat onto their beautiful property. If you're interested in buying a multi-million dollar getaway in the Bahamas, google "Bakers Bay". You'll love it (man, I should be getting a commission, eh?).
From Bakers Bay, we took a short ride across the Sea of Abaco to another resort marina called Treasure Cay. We had been there a few weeks ago and met our friends the Duckworths. It was such fun, we figured we would stop in again for a night or two. As we called in on the radio to get a slip we learned that Treasure Cay was hosting the final leg (of three) of the Bahama's Billfish Tournament. This is a tournament that included ~40 BIG sportfish boats duking it out for big fish, big money and bragging rights. As we pulled into the marina basin, we stopped for fuel right behind an enormous Rybovich sport fish boat called "Double Dog". Really nice boat and a good bunch of guys. Later in the day, we saw Double Dog again as they were docked in the slip just behind us at the marina. Little did we know that we would soon be part of history...
After fueling up, we left Double Dog and motored through the boat basin to our slip and proceeded to see 3-4 turtles right beside our boat! Emily was ecstatic to finally see some turtles up close! One was probably the biggest turtle we had seen on the trip. After watching the turtles for a while we pulled into our slip and Emily proclaimed this to be "the BEST day of my life!". Great stuff!
The marina was hopping given the fishing tournament and we all had fun the first day in Treasure Cay. Day one of the tournament was uneventful, but the second day was apparently a great day for fishing. One of the boats ("Midnight Blue") radioed in that they had caught a blue marlin that was a "keeper". Now we did not know one thing about billfish tournaments when we arrived, but we soon got the low down from some of the anglers. Apparently, billfish tournaments are all catch and release unless a boat catches a fish that beats the previous biggest fish caught that year. Thus for a boat to bring in a "keeper" in this tournament it had to be more than 115 inches long. Well "Midnight Blue" caught one that was just a bit longer than that and we all went down to the dock to see them pull a big blue marlin out of the boat at the weigh station. It was very exciting and breathtaking to see the crew celebrating and the crowd cheering what was sure to be the winning fish. It was 551 pounds!
As the excitement wore down, we learned that all the boats were in for the day except for one - Double Dog. Double Dog had hooked into a big blue and was still fighting it. Low and behold a couple hours after every other boat was back, Patrick sighted Double Dog coming into the marina - with a blue marlin flag on the outrigger! We all raced to the weigh station to see them pull out the biggest blue marlin ever caught in the Bahamas!!! It weighed 1119 pounds and this thing was ENORMOUS!
The place went wild and afterward the captain of Double Dog was quoted saying "it was a great fish and a great fight by a great crew, but we really couldn't have done it without the Per Diem crew behind us."
It really was quite exciting to see such a record breaking fish and suffice it to say we had a great time at Treasure Cay and the Billfish Tournament!
Before we left Treasure, we had one more exciting experience, but we'll leave that for our next post. We are on to Green Turtle for a day or two before continuing our trek north.
Hope everyone is well. We continue to have a lot of fun, but are looking forward to seeing everyone back home soon!
Take care,
The Welsh's
Credits: Journalist: Jay Welsh
Photographer: Gail Welsh
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