Finally, finally, we've had some great weather, the water glassy calm as Joyce and I took the long dinghy ride around the end of Green Turtle Cay and out to the ocean reefs. Starfish, conch, bonefish, and sea biscuits were as easily spotted as could be as we puttered along. Even still, the ocean side was a bit choppy with the ever present breakers spectacularly pounding on the outer reefs. But Joyce and I were soon in the clear water checking out a plentiful array of colorful reef fish. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a manta ray gliding gracefully towards us along the reef. I turn to Joyce and with the snorkel still in my mouth underwater I yell to Joyce for her to turn and see, but all she hears is "shark." All things considered, talking through a snorkel is one of the least efficient forms of communications. No matter what you say, it comes out of the tube sounding the same hollow unintelligible grunts. So in the end, the listener hears what they want to hear. In this case, Joyce clearly heard me say "shark" and responded accordingly. Only after I dug her fingernails from my arm and stopped laughing did I take the snorkel out and point out the ray. At a wingspan of 5 feet, it was just an average size manta ray and not at all dangerous, but arguably one of the more moving spectacles.
Between a second stop at another reef and a long walk on the beach at No Name Cay, we completely missed lunch in town with Seaquel. But we made up for it with a nice happy hour at sundown on Watermark followed by dinner on Seaquel. George & Julie are awaiting fair weather to make the 4 day trek offshore directly to Beaufort, NC.
The weather remained nice for the following day so George and I returned to the ocean side reefs to fish. Trolling lures along the reefs in the dinghy produced no results so we anchored and tried our luck bottom fishing. Within minutes we had caught our first two fish using cut up conch as bait. The first a blue stripped grunt and the second a small grouper, both excellent catches. Little did we know that this would be about all we caught all day. After another half hour with no more bites, we moved to another couple of spots without any further action. Giving up on this inshore site altogether, we dinghied out to the outer reef, about 2 miles to the northeast. The waves were breaking all around us, but it didn't seem too rough to jump in for a quick look around. Still having some bait on my line, I dropped it in the water before going overboard and caught our third and final fish of the day.
How to describe the beauty of this snorkeling site? The layers of coral towered up from the seabed a good forty feet below creating a cavernous hiding places for the stunning variety of fish. Not only that, the fish seemed to be unusually large and healthy and maybe a bit hungry. Grouper being such highly esteemed food fish are usually the first to hide when they see us. But this one particular gentlemen not only didn't go off and hide, I think he was seriously checking us out for a possible lunch. "Oh boy, people fingers," I believe is what he said (Grouper fingers are commonly on the menu in the Bahamas).
A weak cold front passed by overnight with a little rain swinging the wind around the northwest, but the light winds soon returned. We took a last walk around town, checked our email and then went back to Watermark and prepared to depart. Just a short five miles northwest is Manjack Cay with Powell Cay another 8 miles distant. Both of these we wanted to visit while the winds were favorable as neither gives much more then prevailing wind protection and both are exposed to a long fetch to the west.
Manjack Cay has only a few residents, the newest of which is currently building a house overlooking the anchorage. While the husband and wife team are slowly piecing together this all solar house, they are living on their 41 foot trawler that they have managed to work into the shallow mangrove swamps below their house site. Think of how long it would take two people to build a house in the states, then factor in that they are bring all the materials over by small boat from Florida and you start to imagine how long this process is taking. But they interrupted their busy lives for a bit of fun and built an inferno of a bonfire for all the boaters in the anchorage that evening.
If you ever travel to the Bahamas and plan to spend any time out of doors in the evening, be prepared with plenty of bug repellant. Within minutes of disembarking on the beach for the bonfire, the no-see-ums were all over us. As some call them, "flying teeth," drove me back to the boat for long pants, long sleeve shirt and a hat. And for their dining pleasure and feeding frenzy, the no-see-ums retreat in due course, about the same time the mosquitos appear in earnest!
We stayed another night a Manjack, leaving early the following morning for a brief stop at Powell. By the morning the wind had turned to the southwest in anticipation of an approaching cold front (they should be decreasing this time of year, but the fronts keep coming regularly). We could not locate the trail to the ocean side beaches and thus had to content ourselves with the slim picking of shells on the Sea of Abaco side beach which had a lot of destruction of trees from Floyd.
But now we had a decision to make; should we retreat the 15 miles back to Green Turtle Cay or should we try to squeeze into the end of Spanish Cay, 5 miles further ahead. We generally dislike attempting an unknown anchorage in the approach of bad weather and we also felt comfortable in the knowledge that Green Turtle would offer good protection from the front. But neither of us cared to go backwards when we were starting to plan our crossing. So we chose to try the Spanish Cay anchorage. Our guide instructs to attempt in good visibility at there are hard brown bars lining either side of this tricky entrance. And the depth at low water is shown at a scant 4½ feet, just 6 inches more then we will need. We had good visibility and thankfully the brown bars were very visible but the slot of deeper water seemed especially narrow, much less room then we'd need to turn around if we couldn't get in. We idled past the brown bars to just where the channel turns slightly to port when it seemed our water ran out. We rounded up and dropped the hook in an area that would be too slight for swinging room. Agreeing that we couldn't stay here, we jumped into the dinghy to sound out the remainder of the area. Discovering that once past the thinnest section, the water deepened slightly to about 6 feet further in. Once the big boat was moved further in, the calm and quiet was overwhelming. And we were truly alone.
Except for my concern about the holding in the spongy bottom, all was well for the next two days. While the wind gusted above us, our boat reflected on the water as if we were in a pond. Dinner that evening consisted of the fresh cero mackerel that we had caught on the way. But despite the fresh fish, the still beautiful water, the pleasant weather, we sensed that it was time for us to go... time to re-cross the Gulf Stream and leave the Bahamas.
By late the following night, the wind had swung around to the northeast, pushing our boat near the shore. Wanting to leave early in the morning and not wanting to find ourselves aground, I got in the dinghy at 2:30 am and relocated one of the two anchors we had out to another position that would hold us off the shore. The next morning after retrieving both anchors, we threaded our way back out the entrance channel, this time with not so good visibility due to the sun's position. But once clear, we set a westerly course that would take us off the edge of the shallow Banks into the deep waters of the Florida Straits.
