The day started with the weld repair. David first cleaned the pipes and the weld area until is was shiny. Then he mixed the JB Weld compound like play-doh. He made a thin worm out of the mixture, placed it over the weld and worked it into the grooves with the back of the crevice brush. He did this all around the weld. Then we let it sit for an hour, it felt solid and he covered it with the silicon tape. he recovered the pipe with firehose but left the weld area open so we could keep an eye on it.
We later met Jeff and Deb on Beryl’s beach for a walk. We crossed to Loyalist beach and took the water route to Alive Beach. The trail from Alive Beach branched and one side headed to the Pirate’s Lair. The trail was not bad, was wide and had been maintained. We entered the Lair, an open space where there had once been a fresh water well. The “well” was buggy and did not look very good at this point. We continued on to the Pirate’s anchorage which is between Warderick and Hog Cay. There is a deep channel running through he middle and plenty of room for anchoring with good protection from all directions. It was a magnificent spot. There was one boat anchored there, the same one we had seen from above before the storm. The access to the Lair from the North looked deep and calm today.
We walked back and the tide was way out. Jeff and David carried the dinghies a good ways to reach the water. We had a quick lunch at the boat and then rode with Jeff to the park office to get some supplies and pay our mooring bill.
David dove under our boat and things looked pretty good. He did not see any damage. We do have some marks on the front from where we have done some anchor chain riding likely in the past.
We decided to check out the reefs around Emerald rock in the late afternoon. We saw some coral and a lot of beautiful fish. I watched two yellow fish, I think they were French grunts, come together and meet mouth to mouth. They did this for three or four sessions until a blue tang came out of a cave and broke them up. There was a large school of these fish in front of the cave but only these two were exhibiting the kissing/biting behavior.
We had invited Jeff and Deb to gather for sunset and somehow managed for this to take place on their boat. They had lovely treats, crackers , cream cheese and pepper jelly, a Sara and Austin specialty. Jeff blew the conch horn at sunset. He is working on getting some other notes on the horn by moving his hand inside the shell.
We are planning to move on to Shroud Cay tomorrow. There is a creek that you can dinghy into at high tide that goes through the mangroves. There should be fish, maybe turtles.