Second night anchored to the east of Meeks Patch

This is such a beautiful spot we decided we didn't need to go anywhere!  The beach is close and easy to get to, town isn't far away and so we relaxed, Dan did more waxing, I did more knitting and after lunch we headed around to the north side of St. Georges Cay (where Spanish Wells is located) to see if we could find the kid's rental house.  We couldn't get close enough to get a picture because the flats go out for a mile and the swell was running enough that we didn't feel like chancing it.  We headed back and came in the eastern channel to Spanish Wells  to get gasoline for the dinghy motor and the generator.  Sunny as it has been we still need to run the generator if we aren't underway or plugged in.

There was a very light breeze for most of the day, but as the sun sank lower the breeze died and it was actually hot!  We donned bathing suits and took Dory into the beach.

On the way in we spied this ray.  I took a picture as we went over it and Dan turned around and
 I lowered the camera into the water and got a different view of it.

We decided to let Dory get wet again this evening and she enjoyed retrieving her tennis ball:

 

When we got back to the boat Dan did some "surveying" of our bottom!

 

This is my collection of sand dollars from Green Turtle Cay and sea biscuits from Lynyard Cay. I've never seen sea biscuits
this big.

There wasn't a ripple on the water this evening and the anchor chain looks like a sea snake!

We had some pictures of the sunset last night, but I hadn't emptied the camera, but tonight's sky was even more spectacular.

Tomorrow we'll head into the harbor and take a slip at the Spanish Wells Yacht Haven. We'll miss the idyllic setting here.  We have signed up for a golf cart for the week, so we can try to keep up with the kids!  Looking forward to it! ~~~_/)~~~M&D

Lynyard Cay to Spanish Wells

Tuesday was a lazy sail from Marsh Harbor to Lynyard Cay.  Just a typical BEAUTIFUL Abaco day!
We anchored by 3 pm and watched a group of college kids party on the beach, luckily they had to have the boat back by 5 or something, so they left just as we took Dory ashore for a walk.  Great beach for her and for finding lots of sea biscuits.  Very quiet night, and warmer than we've been seeing.

Sunset, (top) hard to distinguish from sunrise... a little cloudier.

We were up, Dory watered and underway by a little past 7 am.  As we went out the Little Harbor Cut, we realized we were in the company of two other Catalinas!   Empty Pockets, a 42, anchored next to us the night before, and Triumph,  a 350, sailed down from Marsh Harbor with us, but anchored closed to Little Harbor.  It was nice to have boats in sight the whole way across the DEEP (15,280 feet at one point) on the way to Spanish Wells.  Dan said I should get a picture of how blue the water was...

BLUE

His other request, get a picture of a flying fish, kept me sitting on the rail for over half an hour to no avail!  While I sat, Dan worked,  he really doesn't like to just sit around, and the ride south was like crossing a mill pond. We did have the main up, but there was hardly enough wind to keep it full.

Dan polished the entire cockpit on the trip.  Here he has the port wheel off while he waxed.

We didn't see the depth sounder start to record depths until we were coming in to the Little Egg Cut.

Depths dropped from 1725 to 224 to 65 to 16 feet in no time.

We chose to anchor in Royal Island Harbor even though we had read and heard that going ashore was verboten, but Empty Pockets told us they take their dog ashore there regularly.  We saw a caretaker on the shore when we anchored and he told us to use the old concrete pier that leads up to the ruins of an old mansion, so that's what we did.

We had anchored here before, but without Dory with us, we never ventured ashore.  I don't know the
history of the place, but there were several substantial buildings there at one time.  Some people
have left their"calling car'ds" in the for of decorated conch shells.

There were several boats in the harbor including a 131' luxury yacht decked out with loads of balloons.  As we returned from our visit to the ruins we passed close by and when I called out, "looks like quite a party" a woman replied, "...and there will be fire works later!"  Sure enough she wasn't joking!  The 33' "tender" headed over toward the beach just after dark and we were all treated to a lovely display (not quite as good as Sam's 4th of July shows on Lake PaHaGaCo tho).  

Royal Harbor was a pleasant anchorage.

Today (Thursday) we traveled the 5 miles from Royal Harbor to Spanish Wells and anchored outside the harbor and dinghied in.  We checked out the Yacht Haven Marina where we will stay when Julie, Michael and family arrive on Sunday.  We had lunch at Budda's on the recommendation from Mike and Debbie. Very good burgers and lots of atmosphere.  We also checked out the Food Fair Grocery Store because we heard that two supply boats arrived last night, so shopping would be good!  

On our way back to the boat we were offered a ride but a guy in a golf cart.  We got talking and found out Debbie and Mike had told us to look him up!! Small (island) world.  He and his wife sailed, went to the dark side and finally got a house on Spanish Wells and went back to a sailboat (a Marshall 22 catboat---dear to our hearts).  Tom Goldson and his wife, Jean (the expert about the local museum) have a cottage called Done Reach (they done reached their dreams.) Back in the anchorage we recognized a boat from Lancaster, PA that we had seen two years ago in Vero Beach.  They live across the street from our good friends Walt and Allison Carlson!  World is still shrinking!  

We moved a mile and a half to anchor near the beach on Meeks Patch, a group of small cays just off the entrance to Spanish Wells.  We all had fun on the beach.  We finally let Dory have free rein and she enjoyed chasing the ball into the water

Pure joy... and then a little Joy to wash off the salt and sand!!

A quiet night here.  Two other boats joined us, but there is plenty of room.  More exploring of the area tomorrow.  ~~~_/)~~~M&D

On to Marsh Harbor

I signed off last time mentioning Nipper's frozen rum drink and was sorry I didn't have a picture. But, Debbie did a pic-stitch that she put on facebook, so I "borrowed" it!

Debbie and Mike convinced us the only way to have a Nipper's was to buy a Nipper's Tervis tumbler and get the first one free (a 16 oz. glass filled to the brim)  We also had a great lunch and decided to walk it off on the beach at Nippers.  Dory didn't even have any, but she was glat to "run it off" anyway.

We returned to the boats and relaxed until sunset.  Dan finished the repair on the davit, and it looks all shiny and new!

Besides replacing the bolt Dan had the whole thing lashed to the rail....just in case.

The sunset was a spectacular one:

 

Sunday morning was gorgeous and we didn't mind springing forward overnight.  We hoisted the anchor at 9 am and took a leisurely route over to Marsh Harbor.  We had a little wind, but true to form it was right on the nose, so no sailing today.  We took a slip at Harbor View Marina (the same one where we stayed last time we were here) and did some laundry while we tried to reach Ed and Connie Dooley on Southern Pilot.  We had heard that Connie had broken her arm caused by a fall on the dance floor at the Governor's Ball and wanted to find out how she was doing.   We finally reached Ed around 5 pm and found out that to add insult to injury she was also fighting an intestinal bug. Mike and Debbie picked him up at his marina across the harbor from us and the three of them came to Brunelle  for cocktails and a light dinner.  

After they left, I spent a couple of hours trying to figure out how to transfer the water aerobic class that my friend at Leeward YC had copied to a thumb drive for me  It took several downloads (we do have decent wifi here) but I finally got it transferred to iTunes on my iPhone.  So---I was all excited to try it out up at the little pool they have here at the marina. I trooped up there a little before 9 am this morning only to find two couples from neighboring boats on our dock just starting to do their own water aerobics!  I joined them and will have to try my system somewhere else.

After class we headed to Maxwell's the large grocery store in town to do some provisioning for ourselves and also for Julie, Mike and family who are coming to Spanish Wells next Sunday.  Even though it was Monday and the boat doesn't come in until Wednesday, we got most everything Julie had asked for.

This evening we were invited aboard Kanga, a Catalina 42 sailed by Greg and Paula Smith to celebrate Mike's 62nd birthday.  He's a Pi baby---3.14.  Mike and Debbie had crossed over to Andros with them last winter.  We enjoyed swapping tales with them.

Dinner was great and Debbie produced a delicious cake for dessert.

Tomorrow we will head south to anchor off Lynyrd Cay,  the jumping off spot for our blue water crossing to Spanish Wells.  We don't know if there will be any BaTelCo towers in range, so I may not have a report...~~~_/)~~~M&D