Not that it was all that shallow for most of the trip. In fact, for most of the trip it was an easy downwind sail across the deeper part of the bank. Don was below putzing with the water-maker unit he has been working on since Fiji! Bette Lee was cleaning and cooking, and I was on watch and cleaning the cockpit stainless which had gathered a lot of rust during storage.
But as we approached Current Cut, things got a little dicier.
How people navigated around here without chartplotters is a question I hope I never have to answer. Particularly the first time. A cut like this needs to be traversed on a favorable tide, at slack or with a bit of push. Plus as you can see, the approach from the East (right) is beset either side with shoals and reefs.
Tom got us there at the perfect time, a midday high tide with gread sun overhead. We'd made a radio Securite' call of our 26' wide craft about to go through in order to avoid a head-on passing situation in the tightest stretch. Imagine our amazement when we encountered no boats but snorkelers in the water right at the narrowest point! Fortunately they kept to the side and out of the current, and we passed through easily.
From there it was an easy sail across to Royal Island, a very protected anchorage that our house sitter Debbie had recommended.
Note the tricky entrance! Yes, it is the narrow one on the left. No sooner had Tom so successfully managed current cut, than we almost entered through the wrong one which has several submerged obstacles. Ooops! We were alerted by a radio call from one of the anchored boats within, and spun hard around. It is so easy to relax and forget to to double check the chart when the way forward looks easy.
Royal Island has seen several efforts at development, but mostly those efforts have come to nought, leaving behind abandoned earth moving equipment and the odd jetty and foundation. This was the first anchorage we'd been in where it was tempting/realistic for me to swim. I had sworn to swim every day, but except for bottom cleaning, which trust me was plenty vigorous, had not. There were several reasons for this: 1) Tom likes to anchor his big boat with a lot of rode in the middle of anchorages, a safety conscious choice. This strategy however leaves a swimmer out in the middle, potentially exposed to boat traffic and usually with little on the bottom to look at. 2) I'd picked up some nasty red stings/bites, which I believed must have come from the bottom cleaning, even though I was wearing a Lycra suit (albeit a very old and baggy Lycra suit...Note to self: Order new suits!) At the first anchorage at Lee Stocking, I kinda wanted to let them settle down. 3) the temps have not been all that inviting. I now understand why Debbie our house sitter who had just returned from her month in the Bahamas looked at me a bit askance as I packed three swimsuits.
But I was determined not to be all talk and no action. So, in I jumped, checked the anchor which had completely buried itself in the soft sand, and set off for the rock dividing the anchorage's opening, There was almost nothing to see until I got right up on the rock, but in very shallow water up close, abruptly there were small corals and sponges. Almost the first thing I saw an octopus about the size of a softball! Quite the welcome committee.
As I circumswam the rock I saw, a half dozen small Nassau grouper, four gray angels, a free swimming spotted moray, a queen angel, a small yellow stingray, and many small reef fish, a list I would be happy to see on any dive. I then swam across the entry channel to the opposite point hoping for more of same. Just inside was a very shallow patch of healthy knobby green corals with lots of little fish, but inside or outside there was nothing! So back I swam for another go round of the rock, and then back across the sand to the boat.
The anchorage at Royal was the most like our favorite kinds of anchorages - protected and encircled -- and is clearly popular with cruisers has the half dozen boats that were there when we came in swelled to a full dozen by nightfall. The stars were brilliant and some rum was sipped. We all slept very well.
No comments:
Post a Comment