We have a plan to move to the Moriah Harbour Park moorings so we may be closer to a place called the lazy river and access it in our dinghy. The Lazy River is a place you can float with the tide and a place we might see turtles. The Moriah Harbour Park moorings get us a few miles closer which might put us in range.
Today was calm so we decided to explore the area by dinghy in anticipation of bringing Josie over tomorrow. We set out for the Red Shanks area which is across the harbour and south of Georgetown. We wanted to be back by 3 pm because there was a meeting for boaters wanting to go further south at the Snappy Turtle.
We set out in Fat Tuesday and worked our way around the inside passage. We crossed under the bridge to Crab Cay, a project that has since been abandoned. We made our way to the mooring field and tied up to a ball to plan our next move. There was one catamaran in the area and all the other moorings were free.
We took some depth measurements in the area. It seemed there was plenty of water. We lost our weight for our sounding line. David dove for it but it had sunk in the soft sand, clay mixture that is the bottom here. The harbour are very well protected and not wavy, perfect for the paddleboard.
Our next move was to go out of the mooring field the way we would bring Josie in and familiarize ourselves with the route and any particular hazards. There is a nice line to follow through two reefs or rocky areas on the chart. There is a good deep section that is fairly wide between them. It was definitely possible to go there.
We didn’t have much time left but we wanted to snorkel so we made our way to a reef we had snorkeled on last year. We tied up to a dive buoy. The reef did not look as good as last year. The water was a little murky, likely due to the strong winds we have had. There was less coral and fewer fish. It was sad. We will go back on a better day but we think it has deteriorated a bit.
David rowed on the way back to save our battery to go to the meeting. We got back to the boat, did a full turn around and went to the Snappy Turtle. The meeting was not an organized event. Mostly people just talked about where they had been and the focus was on the Caribbean rather than the south Bahamas.
We did talk to Griff ( Laura is his wife whom we know from volleyball). He was very informative about the trip to the Ragged Islands. He just came back and says it is beautiful and very doable. He talked about stopping along the way at Water Cay or Flamingo Cay in the Jumentos Cays. We were encouraged that the trip may be possible in our deeper draft boats. We may try it in early February.
We had a nice time with Jeff and Deb even though the meeting was not as informative as we would have liked.
We got back in time for an evening paddleboard. I saw several large red starfish and many small ones. We each had a turn and both stayed dry!
