2023 Bahamas: Nov 25th - Lynyard Cay to Anna Cay

 

In the morning, the kids played Uber a couple of times while I swam and looked through the book. A snorkel spot named "Fish Hotel" caught my eye. Sandy Cay was on the way there, and I suggested that as our first stop. Wind was light, and despite the early hour, there was already a sailboat anchored off the island. I eschewed anchoring in the deep water and parked at the same place as the day before, where I was the only boat. It took 3 tries to get the boat to anchor, but a dive check upon the successful attempt turned out nothing untoward.

We scrambled to get the dinghy out but the boys balked and Xiaoqin elected to stay with them. This time, we remembered to start the generator and water maker during our snorkel. Taking the dinghy out, we parked at the same mooring ball before as Arturo said it was the best one.  Upon getting into the water, some other snorkelers waved at us and made the sign for a shark! Indeed there was a shark! We watched the shark chase two mating fishes around --- he probably wasn't hungry enough to really nail one to eat them --- all he was was disturb their mating behavior.

Marcie cried "Turtle!" and indeed a curiuos turtle had swam up to her. This turtle was the least purturbed by people that I had ever encountered --- it even let Katherine and I touch him. This was shaping to be a fabulous snorkel --- the surge was less than the day before and I wasn't cold at all. We swam around and explored more of the reef. "Every mooring ball is good!" said Arturo. After a while we realized that we didn't know where Niniane was. It was about 20 minutes into the snorkel so I suggested we started heading slowly towards the boat. I wasn't worried about Niniane --- she'd explored reefs on her own before and was a certified open water diver. But accidents can happen. We made it into the dinghy and looked around a bit before someone spotted Niniane. She saw everyone on the dinghy and started heading back.

With everyone back on the Katja, we put up the dinghy and were off just as more boats descended onto Sandy Cay. Fish Hotel was on Tilloo Cay, a narrow strip of an island that boasted many treacherous channels. We drove in and anchored off Tavern Cay. The dive check went well, but when we swam in search of the Fish Hotel, we saw a couple of tree trunks with a bunch of inverted jelly fish and some fish using the dead trees as a coral. Visibility was terrible and the surge was none too comfortable. After that disappointing snorkel, we debated what to do next. We were originally going to visit Hopetown the next day, but since we were all snorkeled out, a visit to hope town for lunch seemed in order.

We turned on the motor and started motoring up the straights but were soon in shallow water. A quick look at the cruising guide suggested that there was a way to get through, but I no longer trusted the book. We turned around and raised the sail, and started sailing to the other side of the straits. Once on the other side, I discovered that the Katja didn't do a good job sailing into the wind, and the straits were too narrow to keep going. After a little bit of attempting to sail in light wind, we gave up, dropped the sails, and motored into Hopetown harbor at 3:15pm It took several tries to pick up a Mooring ball, but we did pick one up and used the public dinghy dock.

Hopetown was picturesque in the little bit we explored, finding Vernon's grocery store. Vernon was an old man who was proud of the store and was famous for his key lime pies. He didn't display those, however, only bringing out one when we asked! We bought banana bread and Boen and Bowen each got a muffin. On the way out we bought a six pack of diet coke at $1.10 each, which seemed absurdly expensive but keeping everyone caffeinated seemed like a good idea. Niniane said she was going to stay in Hope Town for 4 days after the sailing cruise was over and took the opportunity to explore while Arturo, Xiaoqin, Bowen and I took the treasures back to the boat.

"How long do we have?" "We should leave by 4:30pm, latest." "OK, everyone staying, please be at the dinghy dock by 4:15pm." We took everything back, and then drove to the dinghy dock to find no one there and dropped off at the Elbow Cay Reef lighthouse. Then we saw others waiting at the dinghy dock and drove over to pick everyone up.

Arturo went to get ice (despite the closed sign on the marina office), while the rest of us walked up the Elbow Reef lighthouse from whence we got glorious views of the area in the late afternoon light. The lighthouse was the last manually operated kerosene lamp lighthouse in North Ameica. The mechanism had to be rewound by hand every 2 hours, and the light while dim by modern standards was still useful.

Leaving the lighthouse reluctantly by 4:30pm, we maneuvered out into the harbor after dropping mooring ball. It was getting late and I didn't feel like risking visiting Man O'War Cay right away and getting to do a dive check in the dark. Instead, I headed to my backup location, which was right off Ana Cay at about 6' of water. We anchored with no problems and the dive check revealed a solidly held anchor.

We got out the paddleboard and while there was a current it wasn't too bad --- the kids could play in this in the fading light. Dinner was Louis and Arturo's special --- Pasta, Sausages, and Vegetables mixed. I was still hungry after dinner and opened up a can of spam and ate much of it.

Stargazing was marred by clouds, a nearly full moon, and missing meteor showers. But since we were so close, we could see the Elbow Reef Lighthouse operating in its full glory, bright enough to be seen but not blinding.