Sailing Adventures: Bond Cay
- sheri1943
- Dec 27, 2025
- 2 min read
We arrived at Bond Cay in the dark after attempting to sail from Whale Key, against the 5 knot winds. It was dead low tide and we attempted to get into the anchorage farther north, but the water was too shallow. We anchored off a sandy beach where there was an abandoned resort and a shipwreck on the shore and a few coconut trees with low-hanging fruit. We dinghied over to some small islands about a mile away, where we were delighted to find several BIG lobsters and pretty heavy current. The largest was 6-7#. The challenge is to get them free-diving with only our gloved hands. We do not believe in spearing lobsters, ever, since it is hard to be sure they do not have eggs and it takes away the challenge.
There were small conch all around the shallows with many old already cleaned conch littering the shoreline. I hope that this is an indication that the conch population will rebound without the active resort open. We collected several coconuts loaded with milk and sweet meat. I am the designated lobster-cleaner, and Rob is designated conch-cleaner, fish filet-er, and coconut opener. Lunch was a Thai coconut lobster dish prepared by Karl, our crew visiting from San Francisco.
I could definitely see spending several days here, but we have a limited amount of time in the Berry Islands. We need to head up to Cabbage Key, White Key and Stirrup Key before heading south towards Clifton Bay on New Providence. There we can pick up crew, provisions, and return to civilization a little bit before heading down to try to meet our friends that are already in Exumas on their 50' Privilege catamaran. They are also heading to Panama Canal in May, so it would be nice to have a buddy boat for some of the longer crossings. As usual, anytime you have two boats going the same direction, it is a race!
The largest of the lobsters (far left, Rob's) was 6.5-7#, and my largest (far right) was about 6-6.5#. I cleaned them and took meat out of shells so some can be frozen and rest refrigerated for easy access for meals.
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