Guana Cay Map
I created this map of Great Guana Cay, Abaco Islands for my notes on the Bakers Bay conflict.
Updated September 29, 2026
This map shows Great Guana Cay immediately prior to the construction of the Bakers Bay golf course development. The yellow symbols indicate buildings.
Developed Great Guana Cay Map
This overlay version of the map indicates the real estate that would be developed for the golf course (in green), and real estate that would be developed as private homes (in red).
Guana Cay Map with Bakers Bay Property Type Overlay
This map overlays the private property bought by Discovery Land Company, plus the Crown Land, which was not designed to be used for profit by foreign companies, but for the betterment of Bahamians.
Stories from Great Guana Cay: Wings to the Storm · Bakers Bay · The mangroves Bakers Bay destroyed · Guana Cay sketches
An Island Seven Miles Long
Great Guana Cay is one of the barrier cays that line the Atlantic edge of the Abaco Islands, a strip of limestone about seven miles long and, in places, only a few hundred yards wide, with the open Atlantic on one side and the shallow Sea of Abaco on the other. The Guana Cay coral reef lies along its ocean shore, and beyond it the barrier reef. The Settlement, with its harbour and Nippers Bar, sits near the middle of the island. A few miles to the south lies Fowl Cays National Park, on the same reef system.
Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution settled the island in the 1780s, and for two centuries its wide northern end was Crown land, where islanders hunted land crabs at night and sailors anchored in Bakers Bay. The map records what came before the golf course: the Disney site, the deepwater channel dredged for the Big Red Boat and the spoils island beside it. It also marks the turtle grass beds of Bakers Bay, Joe’s Creek and its mangroves, the designated local beach, and the flushing channel, which exists because the islanders pushed for it.
A Heads of Agreement between the Bahamian government and Discovery Land Company gave the developer rights to that northern end, public land included, and in 2005 the islanders formed Save Guana Cay Reef to fight it. Their case went all the way to the Privy Council in London, which dismissed the appeal in 2009 while noting that the Bahamas had no comprehensive law protecting the environment.
My Reporting on Great Guana Cay
I knew Great Guana Cay long before Bakers Bay, and snorkeled and dove its reef for years when I was young. I told the story in three parts: Disney’s Big Red Boat and the Travesty of Treasure Island, about the cruise-ship stop that came first; Bakers Bay and the Eyes of the West Indies, a boat trip up the coast with the islanders; and Wings to the Storm, on their case before the Privy Council.