Saturday, January 25, 2014

Allan Cay, Bahamas (Jan. 15-19)


I’ve lost track of the day of the week, and of how long we’ve been here J

Allan Cay isn’t particularly pretty, and our anchorage here gets ‘rolly,’ but it’s just been restful to stay put.

Allan Cay is known for its’ iguanas. They are an endangered species and therefore protected. Once we got on shore, they seemed to come out of hiding amongst the rocks …. there were so many of them, that it was hard to believe they’re endangered. They thrive here!  Ugly prehistoric looking creatures, but fun to watch, as they’re fairly active and run with a wiggle (which makes me giggle).

Allan Cay iguana

endangered??

Gil tried his luck at fishing again. This time, he didn’t lose a lure, or catch a barracuda …. he caught a remora (shark sucker). It wasn’t all that big – maybe 2’. Gil was pulling on the line to reel it in, when the line just snagged on something. Gil figured he had lost the fish, and would have to dive under to free the line from whatever it was snagged on; so he put the rod down. 15 min later the rod started dancing …. the fish was still on it! He managed to bring the remora in. We, of course, had no idea what it was at the time, or whether or not it was a good eating fish. It was very unusual in appearance, as on the top of its’ head, there was a large suction cap (I don’t know what else to call it, and I’d estimate it at being about 4”x 21/2”). We took the fish over to Rob (on Vita), as he has a great book for identifying fish; and learned it was a remora, and no good to eat. When Gil thought his line had snagged, what had actually happened was that the remora had attached itself (with its’ suction cap) to the bottom of our boat. Gil was then trying to pull our boat out of the water!  Good tactic on the part of the remora. What was most freaky for me, however, was that we had been swimming in the water earlier; and all I could imagine was having one of these critters latch onto me – yuck yuck yuck.

We came to Allan Cay with Rob & Serena on Vita. Decompressing after a series of longer travel days to get to this northerly Exuma island; we enjoyed a euchre night (battle of the sexes – prize went to the guys), and a movie night (A Good Year with Russel Crowe) with them.

Rob & Serena with Gil & I

Yesterday, Jorge & Kim arrived! They were followed by Dave & Rose on Cloud 9. In celebration, the group of us (from Vita, CS’ta Time, Cloud 9 & Serenada) shared happy hour aboard our boat; followed by dinner. The evening was spent catching up with each other again. It’s always good reconnecting.

Dave & Rose, Kim & Jorge, and Gil
lunch on the beach

Today, we had a picnic on the beach with Jorge & Kim, and Dave & Rose, on Leaf Cay, the small island with the iguanas and some ruins. We circumnavigated the island trying to get to the ruins, which weren’t too exciting, but the view from there captured our boats in the turquoise water. Later, we took the dinghy to a small but more sheltered beach on Allan Cay where we met a fourth couple, Amie & Dave (from XtaSea) and just chilled out.

Gil & I have also been whittling away at the list of boat jobs (which seems to grow at the same rate as it’s whittled away) …..  There are boats with names like “Endless,” and “Always Something;” which Gil speculates are owned by seasoned cruisers who have renamed their boats. We think Jorge & Kim should rename their boat, because they haven’t had a CS’ta Time yet ;-)

Our new dinghy has been a source for boat jobs. In our last blog, I mentioned that we had issues raising it back up on the davits before leaving our West Bay anchorage, so we had decided to tow it behind us en route here to Allan Cay. That passage was choppy, causing the tow line to chafe. Fortunately, it only chafed through about 75% …. a little too close for comfort…. that last 25% of line saved us from losing Seabiscuit altogether. So, we’ve been working on modifying and improving our dinghy’s hoisting system, and also on better securing down the gas tank and oars inside it, and resplicing the tow line! We don’t want to lose the family car.

Rob & Serena left yesterday. Rob is just having too much fun with his GoPro underwater camcorder, and couldn’t wait to get to Norman Cay, where there is a submerged plane wreck.

The rest of us are planning to go to Norman Cay tomorrow.




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