“SUNSET BLUFF” RESORT IN EXUMA AND THE NEWLY OPENED ” CATCH A FIRE” BAR
This month our spotlight is on the beautiful island of Exuma based in the Out Islands of the Bahamas, and on “Sunset Bluff” the resort built by British expats Jo and Tony Hope.
The Exumas are an archipelago of 365 cays and islands, beginning just 35 miles southeast of Nassau, an exotic collection of tiny jewels set in the most beautiful aquamarine water . Great and Little Exuma Island, together with the Exuma Cays offer an amazing variety of vacation possibilities, from resorts and hotels with luxury amenities to basic fishing lodges. Hidden coves, bays, and harbours throughout are magnets for yachts, divers, snorkelling and sport fishermen.
This island is truly exquisite and Jo and Tony have toiled long hard, with Tony doing the majority of the labour himself to create a resort that as the name would suggest gives stunning views of the Bahamian sunset. Their vision was to create a resort with beautiful cottages on site for visiting tourists to spend sun drenched holidays, and also a bar and restaurant area that would cater for both their own guests and other visitors to the island, and the local community.
Both Tony and Jo are very creative, having backgrounds in jewellery design and this comes across strongly when you look at what they have achieved.
Kestrel has been happy to watch the progress of this resort as it has developed and to have carried all of their global shipping requirements such as the hand picked garden furniture around the bar area which Jo chose in Thailand. The newly opened bar is aptly named “Catch a Fire”.
Being able to assist a family operation with the timings of the shipments, speeding things up or slowing them down to fit around construction timings has been invaluable to the Hopes. That and our ability to help with advise on purchasing and shipping timings to bring the resort together is an example of how closely Kestrel works with it’s customers at a local level in the islands.
Having followed the Hopes as they have wended their way through the complexities of meeting local procedures for planning and building regulations along with the ever increasing requirements of modern day banking, together with what can sometimes be the difficulties of building on an island where every single component must be shipped in. We are just thrilled to see the opening of this site, and to have played our part in it’s creation and we look forward to hearing more about the developments at Sunset Bluff in the future.
Visitors to Exuma will soon discover that this small island has something for everyone. You can travel the length of the island easily in a day, but it is actually far easier to get waylaid stopping at one of the many beautiful beaches or coves and while a way the day lazing on a beach, snorkelling or simply wading through the clear water to watch the fish, followed by sipping cold drinks with convivial company. The island is split into two halves – Great Exuma and Little Exuma. Kestrel owner and chairman, Andy Thorne, is a great advocate of Exuma having fallen in love with it many years ago when locals might remember that there was still a toll payable to cross the tiny bridge over to Little Exuma, which was manned by a local man with his tin can to take the toll. These days it is a simple drive over the one way bridge looking out across the bone fish flats of turquoise water.
A drive over to Little Exuma is not complete without going to visit Dee at her bar Santana’s, where you soak in the amazing view whilst cooling off with a chilled drink or tucking into the wonderful food freshly caught that day by Dee’s husband.
Then of course wend your way back to Tony and Jo’s to enjoy the sunset from the newly opened Sunset Bluff’s “Catch a Fire” bar.
Kestrel wishes Jo and Tony, and “Catch a Fire” all the best of luck and success.
Watch this space to see where in the World we will be for our next Spotlight On …
