We awoke to calm across the anchorage. It was clear with no sign of rain, a beautiful day. Slack tide was at 7 am. We decided to start the day with our walk around the island. We did not notice the trail the first time we were here but have learned to know that a rope high in a tree is usually indicative of something more than trash. We had seen this on one end of the beach and sure enough, further investigation revealed a trail.
The trail was marked by other pieces of rope, tied to bushes along the way. We followed it across the island. It was rocky and cut through some low brush. We saw cacti on top of the island but the trail did not take us near them.
When we reached the other side of the island, we could see the cut to our left and wanted to see the one to the right so we walked that way, toward High Cay. At the edge of the rocks, we found a coconut. We shook it and it had water. We left it by the trail to bring home.
David noticed a small blowhole in the rocks. It mostly hissed mist at you, but sometimes was more active. We continued our walk to find a small sandy beach. There was a lot of old coral around it. There were beautiful tide pools with little fish. We walked to the point overlooking the cut between High Cay and Big Galliot Cay. The blues and greens were dazzling. the current was coming in quickly.
We headed back, anxious to go snorkeling. On the way back we found a little nest on the trail, woven from grass with a very small opening.
We left the beach and headed to Tiny Galliot Cay . David remembered the reef there as a good lobster spot 50 years ago. We anchored Fat Tuesday off a tiny beach that was only exposed at low tide. There were a pair of osprey perched as we arrived but I was not fast enough to photograph them. The reef was beautiful with fish and mostly brain coral and sea fans. You could see where it once had staghorn coral but we did not see any that was living. The current was strong at the edges of the island and we could not swim out to get to the other side of the reef. We did several drift snorkels which were really fun where we would swim hard against the current and then float the current back over the reef. We decided to check out another spot and come back to snorkel the deeper side of the reef at high tide.
We headed to the north side cut between Big Galliot and Little Farmers. This is a very shallow cut but there was a deep cove off Little Farmers that we wanted to explore. We saw 5-6 turtles on our dinghy ride to the cove. They were hard to spot. The current in the cove was sort of swirling. There was some coral there and deep pools. We snorkeled there for awhile and then returned to the boat for lunch and to charge our motor.
After lunch, we went back to Tiny Galliot for the slack tide. Without current, we were able to swim all the way around the reef. We could not find any lobster but there were amazing fish.
We had a full dinghy motor so we cruised over to Little Galliot to try and find a cave there. We think the cave was on the tip of the island but it was high tide and there was not much room above the water line so we decided to not venture in. We dinghied all the way around Little Galliot and there were many caves in the rock above the water. There were also rock bridges where the rock had been completely worn through, leaving a bridge on top. We found lots of places where pirates could stash their booty.
We still had some battery so we headed back to Big Galliot and went around to High Cay where we had walked. We were watching the tide closely. The area of the cut was so calm. Two days ago, I could not have imagined that we would bring Fat Tuesday so near there.
We still had 20% battery when we returned to the boat. We rested awhile and then headed back to the beach to open our coconut. David brought tools to the beach and we were able to open it. It was fresh and good.
With sunset and dinner it was a full day. We were so happy we had stayed to take advantage of the beautiful day and really explore a place. We had Galliot to ourselves most of the day as all of the other boats moved on. Late in the evening a Cat anchored off the beach. They blared their music for awhile but then were quiet. We were lucky to have had the solitude so long.
Tomorrow we plan to head to Black Point to do some chores and maybe go out to dinner. Then we will head to some more remote places again while there is good weather. We are due to get another westerly blow on the 10th-11th so we will need to find a good place to hunker down again.