We left Chub Cay near dawn as winds picked up from the south. As we left, the sun was rising, the moon setting and I could barely concentrate on steering upwind to raise the sails for all the celestial events.
We had a lovely sail, our best yet, to West bay and made good time at 5-6 knots. Thanks again to Jeff and Deb on Nautilus for helping with our track. We anchored on the north side in about 11 feet. There was one other boat there but about 5 more came in during the day.
We snorkeled over to some rocks where there were some coral heads and reef fish. There were conch in the grassy areas every five feet or so. They had algae on the back side of their shells but David lifted one for us to look at its lovely pink undersurface.
We had seen some metal on the bottom, an old brush pole etc and when we came upon a fish trap, I took that for derelict as well. It did not have a rope or a float on it and there were no others around. There was no bait in the trap. A beautiful yellow reef fish was inside and was frantically hurling itself against the entrance that was netting. I wanted to let him out as it seemed he was in that trap by mistake. David wanted to leave well enough alone but because he loves me, he pulled that fish out. Later it occurred to us that that fish may have been the bait and we had interfered with a local fishing operation. We started thinking that maybe the fish trap did not look so old.
Sure enough before evening an inflatable dinghy went to the area . A diver got out in a wet suit. He likely found an empty trap. We felt bad. We watched as they went to other points along the outer reef. I’m hoping the other traps were more productive. One lucky fish.
The clouds and a light sprinkle rolled in after our snorkel. Winds veered to the west which we were not protected from but shortly shifted to the north where we had protection. Due to weather concerns, we did not launch Fat Tuesday to go ashore.
I would like to explore more here but we have opportunity to sail to Highbourne Cay tomorrow and we are going to take it. We may stop at West Bay again on the way back. I would like to hike trails in the park and snorkel around the submerged Atlas statue nearby.
It was a little rolly from swell in the anchorage but we were tucked in from the north winds.
A few boat things. We are still having some trouble managing electricity. Starlink is greedy and we can’t plug it in all the time. It makes you aware of how much each little thing uses. I remember our friend Bernie telling us how much electricity it took to cook a pork chop on an electric stove. We will get better at managing our charging rotation.
We also need a new product. Our iPad sometimes faces the sun when sailing and gets overheated at the most inconvenient times. I have texted Jeffrey about designing an awning for it. In the meantime, We are working on a temporary solution.