Bellatrix

25 November 2014

Grand Cay, Bahamas

We left West End on Thursday the 20th. Our intent was to sail 53 miles to Grand Cay. After we we out for a few hours fighting a 3 knot current and the wind, we changed our destination to Great Sale Cay, then found Mangrove Cay a more favorable anchorage for the night. You gotta be flexible.

Mangrove Cay is a small, 1 square mile piece of coral rock island in the middle of the Banks. It provided a safe anchorage and a place to dinghy around. We did catch fish, though small ones. Then two days later we sailed to Great Sale Cay, quite a bit larger with sandy beach on one side and mangroves on the other. We dinghyed around, swam, fished and walked Bella. 

We had been advised to buy a “look bucket”. A look bucket is a 5 gallon bucket with a plexiglass bottom, it is used to look into the water to check to see your anchor to assure it is properly set, it is like looking through a swim mask without getting your face wet. Robin and I launched the dink and set off looking for our anchor. It was a little bumpy and search as we could we couldn’t find the anchor, the chain stirred up the bottom making it cloudy. After a many passes and a few choice words, we decided if we couldn’t see it, it must be buried.

Skip loves the 20hp motor on the dink, it will do 21kts. We were zooming along, looking for the flats to fish on when we found them, rather abruptly. We are still learning to “read” the water. Reading the water is learning to approximate the depth by the color, dark blue, deep ocean, light blue, 30 ft, green 12-15 ft, the lighter the green the shallower, yellow to white is shoal water, 5 feet or less. It is slightly complicated by grasses or rock coralheads that may appear dark.

We met a couple of guys on a trawler, Diesel Goose, (like Beetle Juice). Kim owns the boat and talked his brother in law Tim, to cruise with him for a month or so and to help him cross the Gulf Stream. They are enjoyable and they fish alot. They provided us with a mangrove snapper for dinner one night.

We had a beautiful sail to Grand Cay yesterday, exactly what you would expect a Bahamas day to be, bright sun, 10 knot breezes, clear water. Kim had arrived earlier than us and radioed to help guide us through the shallow channel into the anchorage. We went to Rosie’s for dinner. 

Grand Cay is a little settlement of a couple of hundred people. Their main commerce seems to be fishing. We saw huge grouper and bags of cleaned conch on the dock. They were cleaning fish late into the night. Every question you ask is answered by “ask Rosie”. Rosie is the mayor, marina proprietor, restuarant owner, and owner of most businesses on the island. Rosie is a guy and his wife’s name is Gerry. The telephone store, bar, restuarant, and liquor store open on request. If you need the phone store opened, go see Racquel, the bar maid, (Rosie’s daughter). There is an all grades school, “Shark School”, all of the students a dressed in green uniform slacks or skirts, and white shirts with neckties.

Where we are now

Follow the track 

He calls his bike ET

Diesel Goose