About Elbow Cay

Enjoy Elbow Cay to the fullest during your stay! For your convenience, we have placed Destination Abaco’s Free Tourism Guide on our website for easy viewing. For quick picks and favorites of the Island, please scroll down to our highlights. See page 80 of Destination Abaco for general island information.

Our Picks

Entertainment & Beach Activities

Abaco Outback Kayaks

(242) 367-5358

Eco Tours

(242) 475-9616

Froggies Diving

( 242) 366-0431

Paddle Board and Water Sports

(242) 475-0954

Golf Carts

We recommend getting around the island with Getaway Cart Rentals!

Site Seeing

Hope Town Lighthouse

Located across the harbour, the Elbow Reef Lighthouse is one of the last manual lighthouses in the world.  

Hopetown Museum

To learn more about Hope Town and its history, a visit to the Wyannie Malone museum is a must. 

Shopping & Dining

Shopping

Ebb Tide

(242) 366-0088

El Mercado

(242) 366-0661

Iggy Biggy

(242) 366-0354

Sun Dried T’s

(242) 366-0616

Tropical Treasures

(242) 366-0095

Imports Unlimited (Hardware)

(242) 366-0536

Grocery

LVA Convenience Store (242) 366-0056

The Food Store Bahamas 242-366-0391

Saltys Sky’s Market (242) 366-0245

Vernons Grocery (242) 366-0037

Harbour View Grocery (242) 366-0033

Island History

Elbow Cay is an eight-mile-long (13-kilometre) cay in the Abaco Islands of the Bahamas. Originally populated by British loyalists fleeing the newly independent United States of America in 1785, it has survived on fishing, boat building, and salvage. Its main village of Hope Town surrounds a protected harbor with a noted red-and-white-striped one-hundred-and-twenty-foot-tall (37-metre) lighthouse built in 1863.

Although visited by Lucayan Indians earlier, the first known permanent residents arrived in 1785 in what was known as Great Harbour. Wyannie Malone, originally from Charleston, South Carolina and other British Loyalists left the United States for the nearest British territory in the Bahamas.

Elbow Cay and the Abacos were very isolated until the Marsh Harbour Airport was built in 1959. Before that, the residents survived by fishing, limited trading, and salvage of ships wrecked on Elbow Reef. Since then, contact with the outside world has brought in additional residents and tourism.

Hopetown originally served as the administrative centre of the Abacos, until it switched over to Marsh Harbour in the 1960s. (“Elbow Cay,” 2019)