Leaf Cay, Bahamas
23.47.081N
76.07.748W
We have touched earth! or at least a rock. This morning after listening to all of the various weather reports, we got underway and headed to Lee Stocking Cay. We were able to transit out of Cave Cut without any problems although the water was still churning with the out going tide and the incoming swell.
During the transit south we consulted the charts and tide tables and realized that we'd be entering Lee Stocking on a rising tide but a lot closer to low tide than we had originally thought. The chart indicated a shallow entrance to the Research Center but that we'd still have 7' (we draw 5.5'). Good to go; or so we thought. Unfortunately, we rounded the corner and headed into the harbor when we heard the sound no boater wants to hear; our boat against something solid. A quick check of the depth sounder verified that we were in 7' of water. Remember a few posts back when I contemplated hitting a big rock in skinny water. Well, that's what we were doing. It sounded awful but when Dale dove down later, he said that there was only a small scratch on the bottom of our keel. It didn't matter, it shot our nerves to pieces. We backed out and went to a deeper spot to anchor and wait for higher tide; we started dragging (that means our anchor wasn't holding); I heard Dale say words I haven't heard out of his mouth in a long time. We moved into even deeper water and anchored again. Then we really started pondering. If we were going to get a fairly early start into Georgetown tomorrow, we needed to be able to leave immediately after we were able to schedule a tour of the facilities. Even if we were able to schedule something in the morning, tomorrow's tides would trap us in the harbor until late afternoon.
As you can see, we decided to leave that harbor completely and anchor at the island to the north, Leaf Cay. Actually, it was a better location in the long run when a rain squall came through with gusts up to 20 kts. since it had better protection all around.
Doc-No-More came in after all of our fun was over but had some fun of their own. During the high winds they started dragging down on some rocks and had to reset their anchor. One of the Canadian boats anchored here with us, saw what was happening and called to alert them just as they were realizing it for themselves.
After the rain passed, we took the two dingies over to Norman's Pond to look at the salt flats. Dale had seen an entrance on the chart but when we got there, the entrance was too shallow to allow the dingies into the creek. We anchored the dinks and started looking for a path along side the creek but there was none. I started up the center of the creek but when Roger saw me covered in mosquitoes, he wasn't going to have any more of our African Queen adventure (city boy).
We did walk along the beach where I found tons (yes, Kenny tons) of natural sponge washed up. I piled it all up and thought that I would send it all back to California but Elaine said that it would cost a fortune. So I picked out two of the least smelly pieces and will send those instead.
We came back and ended up having a wonderful spaghetti dinner on their boat. Tomorrow we'll try for the Research Center tour and if we can't get it, we'll just head on down to Georgetown.
