Allen’s Cay

4-27-2013
We had a good trip to Allen's Cay. David an Emma wanted some pictures of their boat sailing so they came close to us so we could get some good shots. We think they liked the "action shots" They put the boat on auto-pilot and sat on the bow and waved. Then they got in front of us and waved.

Hello, from the bow!

Good-bye from the stern!

We are at Allen’s Cay, Leaf Cay and S W Allen’s Cay. They are all close together and we are anchored between them. We took a dingy ride to Leaf Cay, just across the water and fed the iguana some crackers. As we pulled up to the beach, the iguana started to come out of the bush. There were probably 40-50 on the beach by the time we left. Shay might not like the tomato basil crackers, but the iguanas did. I was recording while Shay fed and he kept throwing the crackers near me. I kept fussing at him to keep the iguanas away from me. I read in the book that they might bite and I didn’t want to find out.  

FFF at Allen's Cay. Before the fun began!

See how close the islands are to each other?



See, they are just not cute and cuddly!

Come and get it!

See how many their are. They just keep coming out of the woods.

Here they come!

This video is of the iguana eating. You can see how mean they are! 



 



This is a place that is known for a swift current and we found out about it that night. We knew the tide would change around midnight. Shay kept getting up to look at our position and about 11:30 he told me to get up. We were getting close to FFF. We watched for a while and saw a light on FFF so we called them on VHF. David said he was going to keep an eye out for a few minutes but he thought we’d be ok. So we sat around waiting. I told Shay I couldn’t see FFF and he looked and they were right behind us. So we went outside and saw we were getting close. Neither boat seemed to be dragging so we figured we were pulling back on our anchor and FFF was pulling forward on theirs. That’s why we got so close. One time FFF’s bow was between our boat and our dinghy. I yelled for David and he came out and asked if we were dragging. I told him I didn’t know what was happening.  They actually ended up on our port side and we don’t know what caused that. We moved our dinghy from behind our boat to our port or left side. Shay said if we had to move the boat, the dinghy would be better there. We even got out a fender to use if they came close to us. Both boats had our engines running in case we had to move quickly. We did move away from FFF a few times.

FFF decided to move to the other side of the island. We knew the tide would change again at around 5:00 am and he didn’t want this to happen again. So they moved and David said when they got to the cut they had some very strange movements going on. He said it seems like a rip current coming thru which was probably what caused all our crazy movements. They anchored with no problems and had a good night.

We had an ok night after that. Shay said he wasn’t worried since we didn’t have a boat near us. Even if we moved around a lot like before, we didn’t have anything to get close to.

The next morning, we watched several tour boats come into Leaf Cay to let the tourists feed the iguana. Wonder what happens when the tourists don’t come around? I guess the iguana eat the vegetation then.

We all met on S. W. Allen’s Cay the next morning to feed the iguana on that island. We had some cocktail wieners that were old so we decided to try to feed those to the iguana. Well, they may be listed as vegetarians, but they loved the wieners! They fought over them.

See how brave I am? I'm standing IN the dinghy, feeding them.

They really really like cocktail wieners!

I have seen pictures of pretty colored iguana, but these just didn’t make it. Now some of them had pink areas, but they were just ugly and mean and prehistoric looking. I think I remember seeing these in old Godzilla movies. That was before all the special effects and they had to use what they had. 

Shay has been talking about heading back to the states. We sat down and plotted a course from Allen’s’ to Nassau then to Fort Pierce. It would take about 32 hours. When he asked our weather guru, David about it, David said no. The weather was not good for that trip now. So we decided to hear to Eleuthera Island. We charted a course for Royal Island, an island off Spanish Wells a town on the NW corner of Eleuthera Island. It will be a long day so we will start early.

Shroud Cay

4-26-2013

We are at Shroud Cay. This is the place that’s famous for the dinghy ride thru the mangroves to the ocean. It has to be done on high tide so we will do it tomorrow morning. 

We are anchored in the green area.

The route we took thru the mangroves to the ocean.

A private island, Little Pigeon Cay

Beautiful sunset

We invited FFF to our boat for breakfast before we went for the dinghy ride. We had a long ride to the creek. The ride thru the mangroves was great. I took hundreds of pictures and then had to get rid of a lot of them. Shay keeps telling me I can’t post all the pictures I take. But I keep taking them anyway. 

Beautiful

Emma and David leading the way.

Looking toward the ocean

Exploring

 

This is a video of the beach

Emma, getting the perfect picture!

Are you with me?

We have seen a lot of these "rock sculptures" on several islands.

A cute "sandy-footed" couple!

We could see the tropic birds flying around when we anchored. Margaret from Rocking B had told me about the birds with the long tails. I had seen in the cruising guide that they were nesting during March and April. When we got to the ocean we saw lots of them flying around. We think there was a nest close by, but couldn’t find it. I bet I took at least 50 pictures of the birds, hoping to get a decent one. And I think I did.  Emma took a bunch, too. Thank goodness, we both got some good shots.

Tropic bird

We think there was a nest close by, but David couldn't find it.

Emma got this picture. You can see the long tail.

There's a nest nearby.

Looking back to the creek.

Emma and David

These areas are "mangrove nurseries".

Looking back toward the inlet.

Brave explorers.

Guess what happened to the "brave explorers" on the long dinghy ride back to the boat? We ran out of fuel. We talked about it on the way over but it was too late to turn back and fill up the tank. When we left the beach heading back we told David we were low on fuel. He said he would rescue us if needed. They had told us about rescuing a sailboat with their dinghy and towing them a long way to shore. The man gave them a very nice reward and they joked it was their "Five Flip Flops Tow Boat UK" money that they would us for treats like ice cream.

We got to almost back to the boat and ran out, so we got at FFF Tow Boat UK rescue. I told David not to expect such a nice reward from us!

We are  leaving here tomorrow, heading to Allen’s Cay. We have a lot of places to explore and a limited time to do it. It is famous for iguana.

Hawksbill Cay

4-23-2013

These pictures were taken traveling from Warderwick Wells. We had a some rain the morning we left and these are of the rainbow.

We had a very easy trip to Hawksbill Cay. The water was very calm. Well, except for the dark cloud that followed us and the waterspout! David called us on the VHF and told us to look back to our port and see the waterspout. And we did. We were glad we weren’t near it.

We hiked to the top of this hill. We will think of it as "haircut hill"!

Our beach

Sunset

We had a lazy afternoon then ate with Emma and David on FFF. We had a spicy Thai dish that was great. They bought the seasoning packets in Thailand, so the instructions were in Thai, so how would we know how to fix it? We were glad that Emma had translated the instructions, it was good!

We went for a hike on the island. The trail was very steep and rough, but we had a great view from the top. Guess what Emma and David did at the top? You’ll never guess, so I’ll tell you. Emma gave David a haircut! On an island, in the Bahamas, on a hill, overlooking our boats. Hey, it was a great location.

Us and Escape

A view from the top

Just take a little off the top!

The trail
 

You can see the coral heads near our boat.

 We sat on the beach for a long time, just enjoying the scenery.

Our dinghy at the beach.

A view of the boat from the beach.

There were coral heads all around our boat, but we didn’t go snorkeling here. I have decided its impossible for me to get back into the dinghy from the water. When we snorkeled in other places, we were able to anchor the boat in shallow water so I could get back in the boat. So, we didn’t snorkel. FFF did and saw lots of fish.

We met a Dutch family that has a boat just like FFF. So of course we went to see their boat. They have 2 beautiful kids, Alishia and Luca. We enjoyed visiting with them. We had an old chartbook that we gave them. They were leaving there heading to US spending some time going up the coast and ICW to be in NYC in mid June to fly back home to go back to work. They had taken a year off to travel. Shay helped the man with a dinghy problem and I sent a jar of peanut butter to the kids. The mom bakes bread everyday and the kids had bread and peanut butter for breakfast. They loved it. We wish them safe travels. The morning before we left he came to our boat to visit and brought us a bar of chocolate from Cuba. Of course we can’t take it back to the US, so we ate it. It was different tasting, I guess I’m not used to fancy chocolate, just good old milk chocolate.

Moonrise over the island!

 We are heading to Shroud Cay tomorrow. 


Bye beautiful island!