Up early to be at Minn’s to rent a motor boat for the day. I did some provisioning while David went to get the boat. Then we headed back to Kevali where the rest of the crew had prepped the pasta salad so it was ready for assembly like on a cooking show. We decided to go with the roasted red pepper almond pesto from Trader Joe’s to flavor our pasta salad. I had been saving that for a special occasion.
We packed into the boat and as it was almost low tide, we headed to the sand bar off Man of War Cay. A large expanse was exposed. We saw turtles on the way in. We walked around the bar and saw drill snails feeding. Some yellow sharks were swimming around the shallows. They were about two feet long . A ray joined them. There were Casaurina trees in the middle of the island. Small mangrove bushes struggled to establish on the outer edge. Michael found several white clams. The white sand was blindingly bright and had great ridges sculpted by the tide. We could have walked several miles to circumnavigate that bar.
After lunch on the bar, I snorkeled the grassy area out front looking for turtles and starfish but did not find any. We left to go to the Fowl Cay coral reef. We tied to one of the dive buoys and headed out to the reef. It was lovely snorkel. The yellow and black striped fish were there to greet us and we saw parrot fish, some conch, a flounder, grouper, and tang. Some of the crew swam around the point to the beach Austin and Sara stayed in the underwater garden. We found some sunset clam shells on the beach but mainly just basked in the beauty.
Our next stop was starfish beach for a hike across the island. We did not see starfish or get to snorkel there as we wanted to do the hike and we were needing to return the boat by 5:00 pm. We found the trail through the bushes and trees. Palms became more prevalent as we neared the ocean side. Sara liked the tiny shell beach and we saw the tide pool and the terrace fountain. The ledge I call the Grand Canyon was not as exposed but they could see how the waves had carved the rock. We then climbed to the blowhole which gave us some spectacular action. Michael was a big fan.
We dropped the crew at Kevali and headed to take the boat back. We almost forgot to take the bikini (autocorrection for bimini?) down before going through the culvert but David remembered just in time. We returned by rough dinghy ride to Kevali for a spaghetti dinner. Jeff and Deb came over to meet the crew. They fit right in. Austin sliced a pineapple perfectly for dessert. Michael, Sara and Austin attacked the dishes. We then played a new game that Michael brought and thought of different ways to play the 4 man version so that teams could play. It is a game of walls, fences and tubes where you try to block the other player from crossing the board at the same time you try to cross the board, Quoridor.
We were tired for the dinghy crossing but managed to get ourselves and Fat Tuesday ready for the night. Planning a sail tomorrow and some trolling.
