Sunday 26 Jan, BHS day 27: Still in Cambridge Cay, exploring our surroundings.
After a few WhatsApp’s back and forth it looks like we may finally get to cross paths with Pete and Tracy Goss as they cruise back north from George Town in their yacht Pearl of Penzance. We plan to meet here, in Cambridge Cay, tomorrow. So looks like we can really chill here now with a good excuse to actually stay put in one place for a day or two.
The morning is rather rainy, so we use the time to sort photos and catch up with the blog. As soon as the sun is out we fly the drone and again rewarded with spectacular views and colours over the Cays, with Cloudy in the middle of it.
Last night, the mooring buoy was gently, but annoyingly, knocking on the hull again, when the wind was against tide. So in the early afternoon I take our small stern kedge anchor and deploy it off the stern. Now we are pulling nicely away from the buoy. Let’s see how the little anchor holds when the tide turns tonight.
Then we set off in the dinghy, armed with the drone and several batteries. First stop is 1.5nm away at D …. Rocks. Active Captain says there are some nice caves there and we imagine caves you can walk into. But they are in fact water caves …. and we didn’t bring our snorkel gear 🙁 However, the light is not good and the sea a bit choppy, so we watch two other snorkelers swim in, then head back towards Cloudy. Maybe we will return tomorrow.
On the way back, we stop at the sand bar again and play with the drone on “follow me” mode as we walk hand-in-hand down the sand bar. Not great footage, but good practice. Following that, another battery goes in the drone and we do a follow-me as we dinghy back to Cloudy. We’re glad to see the drone did actually stop as we arrived at the boat and didn’t continue into the rigging!
With the drone safely landed on board, we set off again for the prettiest beach in the bay. To get there we have to walk the dinghy several hundred metres through shallow water. At one point Oana screams and a sting ray darts out from under the dinghy and away from her. Phew, if she trodden on it, it could have been a hospital job! (hospital for Oana that is, not the sting ray!).
Once we get to it, the beach is pristine, backed by beautiful vegetation that could almost have been designed by some famous landscape architect. I wander up to take a closer look when Oana shouts “snake!” My immediate reaction, for some reason, is that she’s joking. But then I get one hellish fright when I look down and see a man-eating anaconda between my feet! Actually, it was only about 1m long and 3cm diameter…. but trust me, between my bare feet it looked like an anaconda 🙂 I think I pulled several muscles as my aging body tried to obey my brain that it should move PDQ (PDQ = Pretty darned quick, as Mum used to say). It took several minutes for both our hearts to calm down. The snake meanwhile didn’t seem too bothered and just stayed where it was, flicking its tongue at us. To which we replied by putting the GoPro in its face! How dare it frighten a grown man like me.
That was the excitement for the afternoon. After that we stayed on white beach sand only and looked very carefully in the water as we pushed the dinghy back out to deeper water.
On the way back, we spot “Distant Shores III” that has anchored near us. It’s a Southerly 48 with its famous swing keel, and they have a very professional YouTube channel. We go over to say hi. I’ve watched their videos where they demonstrate beaching their boat in Bahamas, and I joke we are going to make a YouTube video like theirs, only ours will be titled “how (not to) navigate Bahamas with a deep draft boat”. We find out that they are heading to Panama and onwards to the Pacific too. We spend a few moments exchanging cruising plans, then back to Cloudy for a dinner at sunset.
The sunset is as colourful as yesterday only tonight we are also treated with a perfect new moon in the redness of the dusk sky, plus a very bright Venus right next to it. A heavenly sight to end a heavenly day.
Our evening entertainment is again editing videos. We are quite in-the-groove these last days. Can’t wait to get them uploaded and out of the way.