Out Exploring

The weather has changed and we are having a spell of great days.

Our last week on the mooring ball ran out and we headed out to explore.  Our first stop was a short sail and motor to an area called Talloo Bank.  It is a shallow sand bank that is almost exposed at low tide and a long sand beach.  We spent a day there looking for shells and searching for the elusive conch.  In the morning we tried looking in a little deeper water using the dinghy but the breeze was causing too many ripples on the water to see the bottom clearly.  We gave up and pulled anchor with plans to go to Snake Cay.  The guide books show a shallow area inside the small islands that is great for kayaking or dinghying around.  Unfortunately the anchorage was too rough being exposed to the wind which had picked up.  We continued South to Lynyard Cay.  On this leg we watched as our chartplotter recorded that we had gone 1000 nautical miles since this trip started.

Lynyard Cay is almost the furthest South of the Abaco Cays and is across form Little Harbor.  There are several nice beaches and we took the dinghy to one of them for shells and conch.  Cori found some shells and I found several conch but all too small to keep.  I’ll come back for them next year.  The next day was windy and a little rough so we just hung out and enjoyed the solitude and listened to Nascar on the XM radio.  On Monday the wind shifted more to the East and the sea calmed down and it was time to go look for shells and conch.  I turned the dinghy over at the beach to scrub the bottom.  I should have done that a lot earlier, there was a lot of growth.  After that I snorkeled around looking for conch.  I found a lot of empty shells but no live ones.  On Monday Cori went to another beach and I did a bit of boat maintenance and reading.  Late afternoon nine boats came into the anchorage having crossed over from Eluthera.  Our friends Ken and Fran on Release were with them.

Tuesday it was time to start back to Marsh Harbour since we needed to meet with Immigration and extend our cruising permit.  We raised all three sails and started the best sail of the trip.  We had winds of 15 knots on the beam and were doing an easy 7 knots.  When turning downwind we only dropped to 5 knots.  I don’t get better than this.  As we got closer to Marsh Harbour and our course took up more into the wind we had to trim in the sails to point as close to the wind as we could.  As Cori was cranking on the winch something inside it malfunctioned and released, allowing the handle to spin under load.  It hit her in the chest and then slammed her left wrist.  It swelled up immediately.  It was time to drop the sails and motor in.  Luckily we have some space in the freezer for ice and we used most of it to keep her wrist iced down.    Once at anchor we went to shore and ran a couple of errands, stopping to check in with Kevin at Island Boy to let him know that some mail was coming for us (he agreed  to be a mail drop for us) and get some advice it we needed to have the wrist checked out.  A skype call to Helen for advice on the wrist was all it took, no trip to the clinic.  Dinner was at Conchy Joes with Ken and Fran.

Wednesday we made our trip to Immigration and got our extension and picked up more groceries and had a propane tank refilled.  Errands done we spent the evening relaxing.

Thursday we pulled anchor and had a relaxing sail to Great Guana Cay where we had a reservation at the marina to tie up and plug in.  We haven’t been plugged in for over a month and the batteries need the attention.

Our weekend will be taken up with partying at Nippers.  This is the weekend for The Barefoot Man concert and it is reported to be a big party.  One of the others called it Spring Break for Old People.