Sunday, December 11, 2005

Cave Cay, Bahamas
23.54.322N
76.16.561W


Not much happened today. We spent the better part of the morning waiting for a high tide to exit Little Farmers Cay, then picked our way carefully back out the way we had come in to return to the Bank. The water is starting to get pretty skinny in these parts. The cuts between the Sound and the Bank have 20' but everything else is about 6-10'. These days, I'm delighted to see double digits on the depth sounder.

The anchorage we had chosen on the chart when we left (a little north of where we are now), looked like a good spot to go but when we got to it, someone else was already anchored there. It didn't look like the anchorage would allow enough swing room for more than one boat, so we moved further south to where we are now. Looking back now, we see 4 boats in that anchorage. Unless they are all real good friends, I don't know how they did it. We're down here by ourselves without any problems at all.

The guide book described a hidden grotto on this cay that was beautiful and not to be missed. Looks like we missed it though. As close as we can figure it, an airstrip now runs along where that hidden grotto should have been. There were no airstrips on any of our charts, so we figure its new and the grotto is now gone.

Since it took us so long to leave this morning, we weren't left any time in which to snorkel the island that Bob and Caron had told us held great treasures. We could see the elkhorn coral from the dingy ride around it, but as the sun was low in the sky and I have an aversion to swimming with sharks at sun down, we thought we'd save it until tomorrow.

If we're able to sneak in that snorkel before we leave tomorrow, we'll have a full day. We plan on heading down to Lee Stocking Cay and with any kind of luck, tour the Caribbean Marine Research Center located there.