4.30 – Tuesday

We didn’t manage to get a guidebook before coming to the Bahamas (another benefit of being so late in the season – the new versions of the guidebooks are about to come out, so no one is stocking the old versions!). Instead we’re basically relying on ActiveCaptain anchorage reviews to find the fun things to do at each anchorage. Powell Cay looks like it has plenty to keep us occupied!

We started our day with a dinghy tour of the shoreline. Our reconnaissance mission was a success, there’s a barge wreck, a sailboat wreck, and plenty of wildlife in between. We landed for a quick walk along the beach since we haven’t been ashore since we checked in! We kept seeing these things that Kyle called “curly tail lizards,” which I’m only mentioning because he looked them up when we got home and that is, in fact, their official name.

Walking along shore, I saw the telltale eyes of a ray. I gently approached with the underwater camera, but I genuinely have no idea what a safe distance looks like, or how aggressive they are. This lady didn’t put up any fight, she hightailed it before I got too close.

We also found a couple live sand dollars and a picture-perfect hermit crab.

We didn’t have shoes along, so we were limited with our on-foot explorations. We dinghied back to Hobbes, touring the sunken sailboat on the way.

5.1 – Wednesday

We wanted to check out the “flotsam art walk” trail to the beach on Powell Cay, so we traversed that today.

It is pretty overgrown, and I will say there is no art, only flotsam. The beach on the other side is incredibly beautiful.

Good thing Kyle had his all-terrain flipflops on because the rocky area was sharp!

There was a ton of trash all over the beach, mostly fishing buoys, nets, old shoes/sandals and plastic jugs of various sizes. It’s pretty disheartening to see, but Powell Cay is uninhabited, so there’s no one cleaning up the beach – even we can’t help out much because we have no idea when we’ll be able to dump trash again. Not much sea life to see, but the water was pretty turbulent because this is the open ocean side. I picked out a nice teal net and added it to the flotsam trail.

In the afternoon we got the paddleboards out and paddled in toward the long beach. Towards shore, the water surface calmed down a lot for great visibility, so we gently paddled along the shoreline. We saw two sea turtles, but they are so fast! They shifted into turbo the second they sensed us, they were gone before I could pick up the camera.

The whole paddle board trip was amazing. The water was calm enough and shallow enough that we had a great view of the bottom, and standing on a board gave us a great perspective. So many sea stars! They aren’t stealthy at all, and in water this shallow we got some great shots.

There were a bunch of hollow dome-like structures, I took photos of one that had coral growing out the middle of it. When I stuck my hand in the water with the camera, there were pockets of cold water coming from it. I have no idea what that is, but it’s big and really interesting.

5.2 – Thursday

It was kind of rainy today so we didn’t do too much. I thought I saw a break in the radar. Kyle said his eye radar didn’t agree with that, but he was still a good sport and we went ashore.

We managed to beach the dinghy just a few yards from a trail to the ocean side, and from this beach it was a very short walk. We walked along that beach for as long as we could, but we could see the wall of rain heading towards us so we speed-walked back to the trail. No luck, we were completely soaked when we got to the boat. It’s nice, though, it’s still a comfortable temperature and the boat always needs to be washed. I washed my hair and we collected water.

Tomorrow we’ll move on.