I woke up at 5:45am, determined to get the boat moving as quickly as possible. Making coffee for myself and Arturo, eating breakfast, and getting going, we left our mooring ball at 6:20am, and motor'd at our cruising speed upwind. I knew that it was a longer distance from Deadman's Bay to the Baths, but I was shocked that when we passed Cooper Island, 3 Mooring's Yachts came right out of Manchioneel Bay.
The boat briefing told us that the cruising RPM for the La Badine's engines was at 2000rpm, but given the competition, I pushed our engines to 2500rpm, reasoning that it was only 30 minutes to the Baths and the engines were already nice and warm by then.
As the Baths got closer and closer we were dismayed to see that despite the early hour there were already boats on the mooring balls in front of the baths. I remembered that there were at least 8, but in the morning light it was not clear whether there were more or less or whether they were all taken. As we got closer we discovered that there were a lot more than 8 mooring balls, and there were at least 3 left. I made for one and as we passed a few boats already moored they shouted at me to slow down. In the excitement to snatch a mooring ball I had pushed the engines for too hard for too long. Despite all that we easily snagged the mooring ball and settled down to eat breakfast, relieved that we wouldn't have to sit around or come back another day. It was 8:00am.
After breakfast, we got everyone ready for the snorkel. Our mooring ball was positioned nicely so we didn't even have to get the dinghy out, and could just swim to shore, directed by the yellow flags on the beach. Upon arriving, however, we discovered that since the last time we were here, the hiking trail in the Baths have turned into one way. We debated locking up our stuff and hiking over, but at the last minute I decided that the swim was way more pleasant than the hike and we just snorkeled over to Devil's Bay.
The Baths in the morning before cruise ships arrive is an outstanding experience. We had plenty of time because the big cruise ships didn't arrive until tomorrow. The walk takes you over, under, and through the boulders that constitute the beach, and is carefully constructed to be exciting while actually offering minimal physical challenge. We took our time, enjoying the walk, before popping back out to the other side.
From there, we swam back to the boat. There, we had a lunch. The previous day, we had debated what to do. One option was to sail back to Cooper Island, refill our scuba tanks, and then attempt the wreck of the Rhone. But the weather forecast was not good, and doing that was effectively backtracking. We ended up deciding to go to Marina Cay, where there was a dive tank refill at the Scrub Island Resort, and I knew there was good snorkeling at Diamond Reef.
We untied from our mooring ball and released it and immediately there were two boats fighting over our freshly vacated ball! "I think that boat was here first!" shouted Mark at one of them. "Tell that to my skipper!" came the reply as that boat motor'd furiously and snatched out the mooring ball from the waiting boat. Despite the notice that the mooring balls were supposed to be for a 90 minute visit only in practice nobody actually enforces that period, which means that those waiting for a ball could easily have been waiting for hours. We were glad to be spared that drama on the way we chose to visit the Baths. And it was a good day too, since there were no big cruise ships sending huge numbers of visitors to the Baths.
Raising the sails, we made for a beam reach towards Marina Cay, making good time under nice conditions. Arriving there, however, we discovered that all the white mooring balls (the first come first serve regime) were taken, and an online scan of the orange balls showed that they were all reserved as well. Arturo had checked various websites at 7:00am and discovered that places like Cooper Island were all booked at 7:00am! How could that be? It turned out that you could pay extra to be able to make reservations at 7:00pm the night before, pay even more to be able to make reservations the day before, and even more to book up to 3 months ahead. In other words, rather than having to wake up early, you had to pay money months in advance. This was a shitty way to run a vacation based on the outdoors, however, since you had no way of knowing what the weather conditions were like that far out! At first, we tried anchoring off diamond reef but were told off by the Yachtsmen who were already there. It was pretty iffy and there was a reef and a power line running between Scrub Island and Great Camanoe so it was probably a good idea to leave well enough alone.
Under motor, we made our way through the mooring field in despair. My back up plan would be that we pick up an orange ball, get the air tanks refilled and then anchor out at the airport off Trellis Bay. But at the last minute we spotted a white mooring ball across the channel off Great Camanoe. When we picked up the mooring ball it was full of gunk, and it took us a couple of tries to tie up to it, since cleaning up the pennant eyelet took enough time that we could stay put. The color of the ball was correct though, and after we tied up to the ball I tested the ball by reversing it at 1500rpm (it was obviously so infrequently used that I didn't trust it!), and it held firm. It would turn out that the ball was so far out of the way that the fee collectors didn't bother to show up to collect either!
Arturo had called the Scrub Bay Dive center and confirmed that they would refill our tanks, so we loaded up the dinghy with all 10 tanks. Arturo, Mark, and Kathryn would go refill the tanks while the rest of us chilled out on the boat, since the dinghy was already very low on the water with all 10 scuba tanks onboard. Kathryn wanted to do some souvenir shopping as well. The trio dropped the tanks off at the dive center (it turned out that there was a 20% discount for doing 10 tanks at once), did some reprovisioning, and then came back to pick everyone up to snorkel at Diamond Reef.
Diamond Reef had excellent snorkeling, and we had a great time exploring the area. Not for nothing was the place so popular that we couldn't anchor there! After that, we paid a visit to Marina Cay hoping for some ice cream but there was none to be had! We then dropped everyone else on the boat and Xiaoqin, Arturo, Mark and I went over to Scrub Island to pick up the dive tanks and buy ice cream! On the way there Arturo pointed out that one of the luxury Catamarans that were tied up at a slip had the royal colors of Spain!
We picked up the dive tanks with no problems --- there was even a wheelbarrow handy so we wouldn't have to carry the tanks one at a time, and Xiaoqin bought 3 cartons of ice cream, enough to feed the boat. We were greeted with cheers.
Dinner that night was boiled hot dogs, with Arturo saving the leftover quinoa for another night so we didn't get sick of it. We did some star gazing but there was a lot of light interference from the airport, and there were splotches of rain, so we called it a night early. I had big plans for the next morning --- a long sail to Jost Van Dyke with a possible stop at Brewer's Bay for some snorkeling along the way, so getting everyone to bed early fit my plans!
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