2023 Bahamas: Nov 22 Coco Bay, Green Turtle Cay to Mermaid Reef, Great Abaco Island

 We woke up early again to make the crossing. The seas were calmer, enough so that we thought we could make another crack at Fowl Cay. However, there were a few provisions that we were missing and we needed to re-provision, so we decided to do a put in at Great Guana Cay at Grabbers for lunch. There was much debate as to whether there was a place to reprovision --- Google said that the supermarket was closed, but looking at how crowded the harbor was at Delia’s Cay, I couldn't believe it --- with a restaurant and multiple services there must be some way to buy groceries on the island.  The alternative would have been to visit Treasure Cay but that was a long sail, not to mention I dreaded putting in at a crowded Marina where we would be at risk of mosquitoes. We put in at anchor with 2 other boats watching. I asked one of them whether there were groceries and they said it was an easy walk from Grabbers to the market.

We put in the dinghy and took garbage onto shore, where Grabbers had multiple garbage containers where we could dump garbage without having to pay for it --- unusual in the Carribean where garbage fees could be as high as $10 a bag. We walked over looking for the general store but walked past it until we hit the dive shop, where they directed us back towards the liquor store. Arturo took the opportunity to ask about diving --- Dive Guana's proprietor told us that it would be a custom charter: $1200 for 5 of us for a two tank dive, and he could meet us at Fowl Cay the next day --- today was out of the question as he was already booked. $1200 was way above the normal top end price of $200 for a 2 tank dive, so we declined.

We walked past the general store a second time before being corrected by Katherine who was paying way more attention than I was. At the general store we bought fruits, more diet coke, ice, pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving dinner, and various chocolate that wouldn't last long in the presence of Boen.

Arturo and I would make a quick run to the boat to dump the stuff we bought. We realized that one of the refrigerators onboard didn't work at all, so we'd have to buy another bag of ice. After lunch at grabbers, which had excellent food --- Rosie had highly recommended it and she was not wrong. We bought more ice and reboarded the Katja to motor over to Fowl Cay.

We anchor'd at Fowl Cay, and at the dive check discovered that the anchor was well dug in, but the surge was so violent that it would put Arturo at risk when loading or unloading the dinghy. I made the executive call to not attempt to even unload the dinghy there, but the question was where would we go? I desperately wanted to go Snorkeling and looked in the Cruising guide where Arturo had noted (another case where I hadn't paid enough attention or written sufficiently detailed notes) that Mermaid Reef, which was right outside Marsh Harbor was noted by Rosie as a good spot for snorkeling to visit.

It was a headwind, so we just motor'd there against the wind
, approaching the reef at around 3:30pm. The wind was dying and Arturo's forecast website noted that tomorrow was likely to be a motoring day. After the obligatory anchor check, we swam to the reef, which was marked by a single red dive buoy. It was a long swim, but the reef had sufficient life to justify the visit, and it wasn't too surgey. I even spotted a turtle on the way to the reef, and others spotted Mantas and other wildlife.

We dinghy'd the boys over, but they balked at spending much time at the reef and Boen gave us a hard time about pulling him aboard the dinghy and blistering his lower stomach while doing so.

Dinner once again was Hamburger. With the wind behind us, we expected the location to be bug free but the wind died enough during the evening that mosquitoes and biting gnats visited! We beat a quick retreat after stargazing time to avoid being bitten but it wasn't entirely successful --- Xiaoqin got the worst of it, being much yummier than gnats and mosquitoes than I am.