Had some wind during the night but calmer in the morning . Got up for Chris Parker weather. There is a little concerning weather ahead with some south winds Saturday ahead of a new front coming Sunday night. Where we are going depends on the predicted wind direction for the night and which anchorage is protected from that direction. There are a few anchorages that are protected from all directions but most are only protected from one or two directions.
Tomorrow is supposed to be light so we are ok to travel south. We plan to stop at the Exuma Cay Land and Sea Park, Warderick Wells, Emerald rock. There are moorings there. We called at 9 am to get on their list. When we arrive, they will assign us a mooring number and we will pay on line. It is $30 a night for our boat.
We had planned to go ashore to the Highbourne Cay Marina. There is a restaurant there called Xuma that is the all time favorite restaurant anywhere for Deb from Nautilus. It is open for lunch and dinner. There is some lodging there as well but I am not sure yet how people get there. The marina store sells groceries and some Bahamian goods. You can also bring trash ashore and metal for recycling. They assess your load and then you are charged a fee. The Island itself is private, with a population of about 42.
The current getting into the marina was ripping but Fat Tuesday with her little 1.5 hp electric motor was able to get through. The marina itself was not busy and we tied up at the dinghy dock. The grounds are beautiful. We headed to the restaurant. The setting was spectacular. We had the Mahi tacos and a dish called Colossal prawns. It came with some inked pasta. Amazing food.
We then went to the store. The produce boat had just come in. We bought some lettuce , two four dollar apples, two four dollar oranges and some $11 eggs. We also fell for some Bahamian rum cakes which were a relative bargain.
They were working on the lower restroom so we had to get a golf cart ride to the upper facility. Valdez was our driver and he was very talkative. He wants to visit Montana. A guest had given him a card and asked him to come visit there. He wants to see the leaves change color.
He told us the story of his trip to Vegas where he and three other employees from Highbourne went to see the Grand Canyon. They rented two mustangs. He shook his head from side to side when speaking about the Canyon. “Where does the rock find that color?”
He thinks that cars should have a vhf with channel 16. He was very fearful of a breakdown in the desert. “A boat will break down,’he said, “but call channel 16 and someone will help you.”
The upper facility is an open air gazebo weight room where you can see all around the island.
There are signs about some sharks at the island and there have been some bull shark sightings. You should not swim at the marina but outside is ok or no more dangerous than anywhere else. We saw nurse sharks off the beach and in the marina slip area.
After lunch, we decided to go try to snorkel on a reef that we could get to by dinghy. As we set out, it started to rain a bit. We had not really practiced getting in the dinghy from the water so we decided to go to the beach and practice there.
We had a rope ladder that we put off the stern of the dinghy. David tried first and was able to easily get in from standing on the sand. I tried and was able to flop into the bottom of the dinghy like one of those large tunas that they pull in on the deadliest catch shows. My feet were hanging out for awhile. David was quite worried but I was laughing so hard, I could not tell him I was ok for awhile. We practiced a few more times both from standing on sand and from water over my head. toward the end, I was nowhere near graceful but a little better than a flopping fish.
We met some boaters at the store from the Sailing vessel Liberty. They are two women cruising. They both own boats and one has a boat currently in Nova Scotia. The other leaves her boat in Eleuthera. One of the women has a little tiny dog named Ellie who fits nicely in her tote bag. They are headed down the chain as well. We talked with them awhile on the beach.
We returned to the boat. Dinner was not bad but did not compare to lunch. The canned Asian vegetables have a little crunch though and a salad was nice. We cleaned up for tomorrow’s departure and watched the sunset. We are still in awe of the beauty of this place. I find myself asking “Where does the conch find its pink, and the water its blue?”
