2023 Bahamas - Nov 20th Bakers Bay, Great Guana Cay to Rat Cay

We woke up early, made coffee and eggs for breakfast, then proceeded to do the crossing over to Noname Cay. The entrance across channel rock was narrow and not marked at all, so I was grateful for the GPS chart as well as the polarized sunglasses which let me see rocks and reefs more easily. Once back into the Sea of Abaco, we still had a great sand patch to go around before anchoring in Noname Cay's sand patch. I dived for the anchor, and once we were settled, decided that once you're wet you might as well swim to Noname Cay while poor Arturo was stuck deploying the dinghy and shuttling everyone else to shore. Arturo's sister Marcie was an enthusiastic and strong swimmer, and also opted to swim, which helped allay Arturo's anxiety about fitting everyone into the dinghy.

Once on the island, Marcie was immediately greeted by a pig, and as others arrived, the pigs got a lot of attention. They got even more attention when Arturo bought some feed and we started feeding them. The instructions are to drop the food, but in a moment of inattention I fed from my hand and got bitten by teeth. Fortunately, skin wasn't broken and I refrained from feeding pigs after that.

After that, we ate lunch before sailing to the little nook between Nunjack Cay and Crab Cay. There, we anchored near Rat Cay, a little speck of an island (the Bahamas has more than 10,000 Islands, and little specks like these were counted!) Another dive check later, we swam to the shore where there was a dive ball on shore and proceeded to swim to the two wrecks, which had enough fish to be interesting for an afternoon. It was far enough from the boat that the kids weren't expected to swim there, so we drove the dingy over, deployed the dinghy anchor, and then led them to the wrecks. Boen kept having trouble with his snorkel, but we couldn't figure out what was wrong. Fortunately, he remained calm and eventually learned to just clear the snorkel every so often when it flooded.

I looked in the cruising guide and decided that it was worth staying here for the night --- it was a bit late to try to move the boat, and there was potential to explore the mangrove forest in the morning.

Dinner was hot dogs. After stargazing, we went to sleep early once again, still not quite over jet-lag.