The Big Deal about Spanish Wells – Royal Harbor Island, Eleuthera

 Ron and I have been anchored in Royal Island Harbor for the last 6 days.  It’s nice as it offers 360 protection, which we needed so we stayed.   There are always roughly 7 boats here, though not the same ones since they come and go.  One of our “crossing buddies” invited us to happy hour on Sunday and we happily obliged.  They were a lovely couple, on their 4^th year here with their monohull.  Sadly, they called us the next morning to say their captain came down with a high fever shortly after we left, and they hoped it was not the dreaded COVID.  Oh great. 

 Well, we were supposed to meet the rest of the “cruising parade” tomorrow for lunch but declined due to our exposure to who knows what.  Instead, we got off the boat and decided to simply walk around Spanish Wells to check the place out.  We had heard it was the most amazing place to provision, and fun stuff to do.  We were very underwhelmed.  While there is a small grocery store, health clinic, couple marine stores, and we did hit it on a holiday (everything was closed), there still isn’t much there.  It seemed very run down with a bunch of stucco houses in disarray.  It was not nearly as nice or quaint as Hopetown.  We ended up on the patio of a small restaurant called Wrecker’s.  Good pizza and the first time we have had draft beer in two months!  So, there is that!

 At this point, I feel like we have seen what there is to see here and am not desperate enough for provisions (by any means!).  We hoped to take off tomorrow since neither of us of want to stay on the boat another 5 days til there is a multi-day break in the weather on next Tuesday.   Well, surprise surprise, we did end up staying til Tuesday.  There wasn’t anywhere protected enough for us to get to in one day.  A few boats went to Hatchet Bay, but we decided to wait since the holding there was unpredictable and did end up getting a chance to have lunch with a few of the cruisers after all at Buddah’s here in Spanish Wells.

 To entertain ourselves, Ron went snorkeling and caught 4 more lobsters.  He made some new friends as he gave three away and kept one for himself.  The water was very cold, and I didn’t brave it.  He wasn’t in there long but just enough time for his seafood stash.  We also hit the main grocery store to pick up a few extras and had lunch for the second time at Wrecker’s. 

It is starting to get easy not bad for 10 minutes in the water.

 The new plan is, is we take off tomorrow and head down to Highborne Cay.  It is another little place, only 9.5 hours away, with southerly protection and easy anchoring.  Ooh – free anchorage with restaurants, laundry, and seahorses!  Sounds perfect.  At least we won’t have a 20-minute dinghy ride (which keeps us on the boat here during bad weather in Spanish Wells).  I have seen all there is to see here and am ready to go but it has been important we learn to be patient as our weather windows are key to our success.