A Season on Elbow Cay: The Lighthouse, the Regattas, and Hope Town's 2026 Calendar

Anyone who has kept a cottage on Elbow Cay long enough knows the island runs on three clocks. The lighthouse keeps one, wound by hand every couple of hours. The Hope Town Sailing Club keeps another, November through April. And every summer the Regattas in The Abacos overtake the whole Sea of Abaco for eight days. The tourist guides treat these as attractions. Residents treat them as the year.

This is a companion to that year in 2026: what has changed, what to watch for, and which harborside rooms tend to fill up around each event.

The lighthouse is back on its own schedule

The red-and-white tower on the western edge of the harbor is the only reason a lot of second-home owners first saw Hope Town, and it very nearly went the way of every other British Imperial lightstation. Between 1836 and 1997 the British Imperial Lighthouse Service commissioned 11 manned light stations across the Bahamas; the Elbow Reef Lightstation is now the only active Bahamian lighthouse to remain hand-wound and kerosene burning, and it is the only lighthouse of this kind in the world.

That distinction almost disappeared twice. The first time was in the 1990s, when automation loomed and the Bahamas Lighthouse Preservation Society formed to stop it. The second was in 2019. The lightstation sustained more than $890,000 in damages as a result of Hurricane Dorian. Restoration ran on donations, government partnership, and a grant from the U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation worth over $472,000, awarded through a partnership with the Elbow Reef Lighthouse Society and the Elbow Reef Foundation. The lighthouse was officially re-opened in December 2023 after months of renovation following Hurricane Dorian.

What the reopening actually looks like day to day:

• Visitors can climb the 101 steps to the balcony level every day from 9 am until 5 pm except on Sundays.
• A small gift shop and restaurant on the grounds provide nourishment and supply souvenirs in the mornings, and a second Lighthouse Society gift shop across the harbor in town is open from 10 am to 4:30 pm.
• The keeper's routine has not changed. Like his father and grandfather before him, Jeffery Forbes Jr. climbs 101 steps each day to crank a hand winch 427 times every 2 hours.
• The beam still throws the way it did in 1863. The weight mechanism is hand cranked every few hours to maintain a sequence of five white flashes every 15 seconds, and the lamp burns kerosene oil with a wick and mantle at the rate of one gallon per night.

For residents this is the practical read: the Society's town-side shop is a reliable stop for guests arriving on a mid-morning ferry, and the keeper's schedule is a good reminder to any houseguest asking why the harbor light is not on a timer.

A calendar in two halves

Sailing on Elbow Cay splits cleanly into a winter club season and a summer regatta week. Both are open to anyone with a boat. Neither requires you to know the trophies by name, though it helps at the party afterward.

Winter, November through April: Hope Town Sailing Club

The club was founded in 1964 and still runs its cruising races out of the same waterfront on Hope Town Harbor. Members are told to expect a full schedule from November until April. The 2026 calendar carries forward the H. Bowen White Cup and, per the Race Committee, an updated series that emphasizes participation over pedigree.

A few specifics worth knowing before you push off:

• Races are open to HTSC members and non-members alike, there is no entry fee, and boats are given a handicap using PHRF and a Portsmouth time-on adjustment, racing together as a fleet of mono-hulls, multi-hulls, sloops, schooners, ketches, catboats and classic Bahamian workboats.
• The course usually lies between the Parrot Cays just outside Hope Town Harbor, Matt Lowe's Cay, and Sugarloaf Cay, with the starting line set by the wind, an early-afternoon start dependent on tides, and a course typically sized for a 90-minute race.
• Races are canceled when wind conditions average 18 mph or higher over a one-minute interval.
• Hail "Hope Town Race Committee" on Channel 68 after the Cruiser's Net, or on race day call the Race Committee after 10:00 am using Channel 66.

The takeaway for a resident: if your boat is 18 feet or longer and you have any weekday afternoon free between the Yeardley Smith Trophy and the H. Bowen White Cup, you can be on the starting line the same week you decide to try.

Summer, June 20 through 28: Regattas in The Abacos

RITA is the counterpoint to the winter club series. Where HTSC is Hope Town's own, RITA is a multi-island circuit that ends up back in Elbow Cay for one of its finale nights. From June 20th to 28th, the premier regatta kicks off at Green Turtle Cay and sails through Great Guana Cay, Marsh Harbour, Elbow Cay, and Little Harbour.

The commemorative shirt this year is worth flagging for anyone who collects them. The 2026 design is inspired by the Central Bank of The Bahamas' 50-cent coin featuring a native Bahamian sailboat, a vessel that for generations has represented the skill, independence, and maritime heritage of the country.

If you already live on Elbow Cay, RITA is the week when your dock will be borrowed, your golf cart will be somebody's ride to the party, and the harbor will hold more boats than it does at any other point in the year. Plan the guest bedroom accordingly.

The harbor's supporting cast

Regatta week and race afternoons are what fill the restaurants. It is worth knowing which ones absorb the crowd well and which ones are best kept for the weeks in between.

On Elbow Cay, the Abaco Inn stays the reliable dinner room. Its restaurant is decorated with marine-focused touches and serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner in an indoor dining room or on a deck that overlooks the blue water just offshore, with fresh twists on Caribbean dishes and creative cocktails made from local fish caught daily.

For a lunch stop where locals actually cross the sound to eat, Firefly on the Sea of Abaco is the one to remember. Owned by the developers of Firefly Vodkas, the restaurant and bar carries the full line along with the Mo-Tea-To, their take on the mojito, and the Fly Swatter, whose ingredients are a closely guarded secret, and locals travel from throughout the Abaco Islands chain to catch one of the best views of the Sea of Abaco.

Two more standbys sit inside the harbor itself. The Hope Town Inn & Marina runs a free boat shuttle from any of the docks across the harbor to its open octagonal restaurant and swim-up bar, with a Caribbean-inspired menu heavy on seafood for lunch and dinner. Cap'n Jack's, on the harbor's east side, remains the everyday breakfast-through-dinner option that gets you fed without a reservation.

For a longer day, the run south to Little Harbour is the one worth planning. Pete's Pub & Gallery is the anchor there, and the operation now has three cottages available and beautiful lots for sale in Little Harbour, with the Schoolhouse cottage located three doors south of the Pub, just off the main dock next to the Foundry. A lunch at Pete's, an hour in the Foundry, and a slow ride back before the wind picks up is the model afternoon for a house full of guests who have already done the lighthouse.

And when you need a rainy-morning answer for out-of-town family, the Wyannie Malone Historical Museum still holds. The museum exhibits and preserves much of the settlement's history through memorabilia, artifacts, old photos and documents, alongside sustained elements of the community's past including the cholera graveyard and the Abaco dinghies seen at regattas throughout the Bahamas.

Rum, songwriters, and a room that holds a thousand

The event that sits outside the racing calendar and is worth putting on the fridge is the Hope Town Music & Rum Festival. It runs as a series of intimate evenings across Hope Town venues, built around visiting songwriters and long-time second-home families. Over 1,000 attendees are expected to collect in Hope Town venues listening, tasting rum and feeling down-home in their souls.

For a settlement whose full-time population is measured in the hundreds, a thousand attendees is the number that tells you what to expect: every rental booked, every dock line taken, and the ferry from Marsh Harbour running heavier than it does on a normal week. The Marsh Harbour to Hope Town ferry trip is normally 40 minutes, which is the timing to hand to any guest coming in for a single festival evening.

The through line

If there is one thing to hold on to from 2026 on Elbow Cay, it is that the island's calendar is no longer organized around recovery. The lighthouse is lit and open six days a week. The sailing club has a full winter card. RITA has expanded its awards. The Rum Festival is drawing four-digit crowds again. For anyone who stayed through the harder years, this is the season that feels most like the one you first bought into.

Slow down. You're in Hope Town.

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