Happy Birthday Jer. I’m thinking of you on this beautiful morning. We got up early to head to O’Brien’s.Cay, home of two snorkel spots, The Aquariam, and a plane wreck site.
Slack tide was around 9 and we wanted to leave around this time and come back at the next slack. To get there, we had to go almost out Bell’s Cut and then back in on the Obrien’s side. We had spoken to several boats who had done it. There were no tide dependent shallow areas going that way.
We headed around easily and initially anchored. Just when we got set and were in the dingy to go snorkel, a boat left a mooring ball. We went back, pulled our anchor and grabbed it.
We set out for The Aquariam, a small rocky cove where fish congregate. Sometimes people bring breadcrumbs or crackers to feed them but we did not.
There was only one other dinghy there and we tied to a dinghy mooring. The view from the water was spectacular with fish all around.
After snorkeling, we headed to try and find the plane crash site. David found it but the current was starting to pick up. I went in and was able to swim up current for a picture. There were not many fish there but part of the plane was visible. Eerie. A shark came by as I got back to the dinghy.
We ate a quick lunch and then headed back around the cut to the Cambridge side. Our old mooring was taken but there was another one available and we hopped on. David napped while I did some blogging.
We planned to go snorkeling again with Alice around 3. About 230, Alice texted that the eagle rays were cruising near our old mooring ball, in the area where we had seen the jumps. She was close so she swam over and saw 3 of them swimming around.
We decided to snorkel the side reef, along the edge of the anchorage. We anchored the dinghies in a small sand patch and hopped in. A small fish sheltered in a hole under out dinghy. He stayed there the whole time we snorkeled..
There were scattered coral heads. A barracuda hovered nearby.
David and I then went back to the islets to snorkel again. No eagle rays but David spotted a turtle and a few stingrays. He lifted a beautiful conch for a picture before replacing it carefully.
We returned to the boat, dried and packed a picnic to have a the blue pool beach. It was a tin can picnic consisting of obscure boat food. I think this would make a great boaters pot luck theme. We had smoked sardines, and dolmas, with some leftover pita chips. It was delicious.
We walked the evening beach out on the little strip of sand that was lined with conch shells. We put some of the stranded conch back to the edge of the water. We were not sure it would help them but we thought maybe one or two might survive. At sunset, we returned to the boat. Thinking again of Jer, surrounded by friends, blowing out candles.
