A week of Fun

A WEEK OF FUN

Most of the past week we spent at Double Breasted Cays snorkeling and hunting.  Two other sail boats moved into the anchorage and the couples aboard were wonderful to meet.  The first boat, Second Sojourn, with Gary and Melanie aboard are in the Bahamas for the second season.  Gary was very interested in spearfishing but did not have much success last year so we offered to take them with us on one of our daily hunts.  The second boat, Annabella, had a young couple, Collin and Elizabeth, from New York, here for the first time.  They both work and are here until the end of December.  They have never spear-fished before but were wanting to learn.  We loaned them gear, spears, weights and hoods and took them along with us also.  On the first hunt, we picked up 4 conch and got 6 lobster.  Neither of the couples had ever cleaned conch so we went to the beach for a lesson.  

Collin and Elizabeth, Annabella, first hunt

Gary and Melanie, Second Sojourn

Kathi with her catch

After that first day of lessons they picked up hunting very quickly.  Fortunately Double Breasted Cays is a great environment for getting lobster, conch or fish.  On Wednesday, I speared a large Crevalle Jack which got off my spear.  Kathi, who was about 100 yards away saw the wounded fish and gave it the coup-de-grace.  We invited everyone over for a seafood fry; popcorn lobster, cracked conch, fried hogfish and Jack.  Kathi made a great salad and we feasted.  After dinner we taught everyone to play the card game Golf. 

Sailing to Strangers Cay

The weather looked good for sailing to a new spot on Friday and all of us left Double Breasted Cays.  Annabella headed for Allens-Pensacola Cay.  We let them keep the spear-fishing equipment we’d lent them; we know we will meet them again before they leave and can get the gear at that time.  Second Sojourn sailed with us to Strangers Cay.  We had a wonderful 3 hours of sailing before we got into the anchorage.  

Strangers Cay is an isolated, rarely visited Cay.  It is a little out of the way from getting to any other Cays due to shallow sand bars that almost surround it.  To sail there you need to get around the sandbars then backtrack a short ways to reach the anchorage.  It is uninhabited.

Once anchored we went exploring this new Cay; unfortunately we were a little disappointed.  The entire area is very shallow and sandy so not a lot of fish life.  We did find a couple of spots to hunt and got a couple of lobster that Gary and Melanie wanted to freeze for Christmas Dinner. They invited us to join them for dinner and we feasted on rack of lamb, deliciously prepared.

Anchored at Strangers Cay

Since the terrain was not the best for picture taking or hunting we moved on Saturday to Crab Cay, one of the anchorages that we know very well.  We were able to sail for about half the 6 hour trip but then had to turn into the wind so motor-sailed the rest of the way.  Once we arrived we jumped into the water to collect our dinner, Gary and Melanie along with us.  We picked up enough lobster and fish for dinner then went back to the boat for the evening.  Gary and Melanie had loaned us the complete 6 seasons of Downton Abbey so that is being our evening entertainment most nights.  

On Sunday we relaxed then went exploring along some of the coastline of Crab Cay that we haven’t spent much time at.  We found a nice ‘Honey-hole’ with several ledges and 15-20 lobster and numerous large fish.  We spent about an hour exploring the area, tickling out some lobster and chasing hogfish.  We came back with 6 lobster which we shared with Second Sojourne and a nice hogfish.  Dinner that night was seafood fettuccine.

Sunset at Powell Cay

On Monday we moved to Powell Cay, a short hour journey.  We’ve been to Powell Cay before and know the area pretty well.  We wanted to go by dinghy around the Island to the ocean side so we could get to the adjacent Cay, Bonefish Cay, where we’ve hunted for seaglass before.  The seas were a little rougher than we wanted to tackle so we hunted a new area between Powell Cay and Spanish Cay.  Kathi found another ‘Honey-hole’ with 4 small spotted eels and a ledge with about a dozen lobster.  Near by, another ledge had 4 or 5 lobster.  We harvested enough for dinner and then just spent some time looking around.  Melanie found a Short-nosed batfish, something that looks like it belongs in a prehistoric era.  It has 4 fins that it uses to walk along the bottom of the seafloor.  Truly a bizarre sight.

Monday night was pizza night and we invited Gary and Melanie to join us.  The four pizzas were cooked on the grill; lobster alfredo, thai-lobster, pepperoni with onion and olives, and sausage and red pepper.  Delicious as usual.