5.19 – Sunday

I got really irritated with all the boat wakes this morning, and we decided to move to another anchorage on Green Turtle Cay. We spent more time pulling up and setting the anchor than we did actually traveling, which accurately describes our last three moves. We are now on the north side of Green Turtle Cay, the only boat anchored in Coco Bay. It’s calm, peaceful, and beautiful.

Today’s lunch was Anniversary Pt 2 – Kyle made cinnamon French toast with the coconut bread, topped with bananas, plus bacon and mimosas. As we finished up brunch we watched storms pass through on either side of us – out at sea we could see a large water spout. I was happy to be on this side of the island, water spouts dissipate as they approach land.

About the time the water spout dissipated, a charter power cat came in and tried to anchor near us. Now, Sunday is usually the changeover day for charter boats so I’m guessing this was their first time anchoring, but they were literally right on top of us. They tried all different spots around us, but they were never more than 20 ft off our boat. I was watching with great interest. They finally dropped anchor in front of us, which had them literally sitting right above our anchor, but fortunately they decided that was a little too close. After about an hour of shenanigans they finally dropped off our starboard side with plenty of swing room. There goes our peaceful anchorage.

They are from Texas, and they have the volume to prove it. While they were anchoring 20 feet away from us, we were close enough to comfortably converse. They at least seemed apologetic for getting too close, but we are literally the only boat here. There is so much space! Do I sound like a grumpy old woman yet?

We dinghied over to Fiddle Cay and walked the length of the beach there. It’s supposedly great for sea biscuits. We grabbed a decent looking conch shell, and a sea urchin shell! The urchin test was incredibly fragile, I took a photo of it for you then donated it back to the sea.

We explored Coco Bay on the way back, we saw so many sea stars – all different colors, too! They really stand out against the greenish brown grass.

Kyle fired up the grill for smoking mahi, and I wanted to go for a quick paddle. He said he didn’t want to go, and it’s a good thing because we discovered the Isle board is no longer holding air – there’s a defect in the seam that finally gave up.

I took the Tower board into the cove. I had to fight the wind on the way in, it kept pushing me into the shallow rocks so I was paddling pretty hard. Once I got in the wind calmed down and I could stand and paddle.

I discovered a public dock, and on the dock people were feeding…well, they said they were feeding a shark, a turtle and stingrays, but honestly there were little fish around that were getting most of the food. From my vantage point I could see the sealife much better than they could, the shark did come around a bit (it looked like a black tip?) and the turtle was a hard sell. I tried to take some photos – so far this is the best photo of a shark I’ve gotten, they are camera-shy.

I paddled back toward the boat along the coast. The surface was calm so it was easy to see the bottom, suddenly I realized I was looking at two of the biggest stingray eyes I’d seen yet. The ray was buried in the sand, only the eyes and tail were visible. And they were huge. I snapped some photos, trying not to scare her off, but eventually she took flight and I followed her on the board. It’s impossible to show scale in the photo, but I’m sure she and I have roughly the same wingspan.

After that I paddled back to Kyle and we had amazing salads for dinner. Kyle mentioned that we have the first named storm on the horizon – TS Andrea, looks like any formation will happen north of us. It’s not even hurricane season and we have a named storm – a good reminder that we really need to start getting back to the states.

5.20 – Monday

I was exhausted after paddleboarding yesterday so we had a quiet day until late afternoon. We went ashore to walk to the ocean side of the island, to see if we can snorkel the Sea Garden reef tomorrow – and if we can, do we want to dinghy around the island or hike in with our gear. It was a nice walk (although one of the “roads” that google showed definitely had us cutting across two private properties), and most of the trail was along the beach. The water was way too rough for snorkeling.

We did have a run-in with a Wilson’s Plover on the beach. I know just enough about birds to understand that if they pester you, you’re probably too close to their nest. However, this plover wasn’t giving us a hard time, he seemed curious. And I’ll admit, I was drawn in by his adorable bow tie.

It wasn’t until after I snapped a close up that I saw the nest. Crap. Sorry sir MA’AM! Anyway, I feel bad about being so foolish, but at least we didn’t accidentally step on the nest. I’m just kicking myself for not figuring it out sooner.

5.21 – Tuesday

Since we hadn’t found any snorkel spots that were calm enough, Kyle suggested we head back to Powell Cay – there are a couple wrecks there, and we know they’ll be calm and easy snorkeling. We fired up the engines and pulled up the anchor. As I put us on course I realized we could probably sail, so Kyle and I raised the sails and put the engines in neutral. We were doing okay – almost on a beam reach, so even with light wind we can keep moving. I shut the engines down.

We almost crawled to a stop. With almost no wind, we were doing about 1.5 kt at the slowest. Since our trip would have been only two hours under engine power, if it extended to three it wasn’t a big deal, so we sat back and tried to enjoy it. Eventually we got a few gusts that got us up to 5 kt, but for most of the trip we were doing about 2-3 kt. It was a nice day though, perfect temps, a little cloudy, beautiful water. I grabbed a book and took some pillows up to the trampolines. Just living that mermaid life.

Just as I was about to start up the engines and turn towards our anchorage, the wind filled in and we made our fastest speed of the sail, 5.7 kt. But we had to pull the sails in and turn, otherwise we’d go past our anchorage.

Under engine power, we would have arrived at 1pm. Since we’re hardcore sailors (haha!), we didn’t drop anchor until 2.30pm. I headed as close to shore as I dared, Kyle and I agreed on what sandy patch to aim for. He headed up to the bow to prepare the anchor and we approached the sandy patch. Then…oh crap.

“Actually, we’re just going to drop right here!” I yelled with just a hint of panic in my voice, and hit reverse on the engines.

Kyle gave me that questioning look, just as the shallow water alarm went off!

Now, the alarm goes off when we have about 2.5 ft of water under the keel, so we weren’t in any danger of hitting bottom, but my depth numbers dropped pretty rapidly. Anyway, we were anchored in plenty of water and I was happy with our position, and after Kyle saw the charts he decided he was also comfortable with our spot.

We spent the rest of the day in the water, but this post is already pretty long so you can read about that in the next post!