Location
Convenient to the U.S.,
Yet a World Apart.
Montage Cay is remote, yet easily accessible. It is located less than a mile offshore of Marsh Harbour, about halfway down the 120-mile-long Abaco chain of islands. It is 110 miles north of the Bahamas’ capital of Nassau, and approximately 170 miles due east of Palm Beach, Florida. Marsh Harbour’s Airport is the second largest in the Bahamas, and offers direct scheduled air service to major American and European markets, as well as a modern FBO that welcomes private jets and charters. You have the privacy you desire, yet you are only minutes from shopping, restaurants, grocery stores and pharmacies in Marsh Harbour.
THE OUT ISLANDS
Island Hopping
in The Abacos.
The Abacos are known as one of the world’s best boating and sailing destinations with 120 miles of scenic islands and beautiful beaches. With one traffic light, Marsh Harbour is the big city spot of the Out Islands. Hope Town on Elbow Cay and New Plymouth on Green Turtle Cay have the look of historic fishing towns complete with picket fences and gingerbread trim. Hope Town is also famous for its candy-stripped lighthouse, built in the 1860’s. Getting to these and others is easy by boat from Montage Cay.
HISTORY
From Brigantines and Pirates
To Loyalists and Boat Builders.
On Columbus’ first voyage to the New World, the Bahamas were his first stopping-off point in 1492. There he encountered the native Lucayan inhabitants, but instead of his intended destination, the East Indies, he was half a world away in the West Indies on one of the Bahamas’ 700 islands. In the late 1600s, the Abacos were rife with marauding pirates like Calico Jack Rackham and the infamous Blackbird, intent on targeting the merchant ships that traversed the tricky shallow waters. A hundred years later, they became “wreckers,” salvaging cargo from ships wrecked on reefs or sinking in storms. After the American Revolutionary War, many families from the colonies who remained loyal to King George III immigrated to the Bahamas and were given refuge and vacant land grants. These Loyalists formed many of the first settlements in the Bahamas. One industry that thrived throughout was wooden boat-building, ranging from large schooners to fishing boats called smack boats to handsome 12’-14’ daysailers called Abaco Dinghies which are still coveted today.
