When we sailed (sailed! Yay! Not motored!) back around to the Flamingo Bay entrance just about exactly one day after the swells had prevented us from heading in, the reef was no longer breaking down its length and the north swells were small enough that we decided the anchorage would be okay. Finding the break in the southern end of the reef made me a little nervous, because the chart waypoint was practically on the reef itself, but with Britt up on the bow where he could see the reef clearly,
I felt a lot better, and we slid through with 18 feet of water under us, plenty of room. (On our previous visit we entered on the north, which is wide-open with patch reefs to steer around.)

Inside the bay, the water was still fairly turbid from the northerly swells, but we could still see the dramatic dark spots where patch reefs rose from the sandy bottom twelve feet down, up to nearly break the surface. We crossed the bay to anchor near Peewee Point in as large a space among the reefs as we could find, and let me tell you, it's nerve-wracking powering in reverse to set the anchor when over your shoulder you can see a big fat toothy reef that would like nothing better than to munch
on your keel! (Well, it would be nerve-wracking if I didn't know the anchor had thunked down into that wonderful Bahamian sand.)

Yesterday the visibility was still not good enough for snorkeling, and anyway I was still kind of grumpy, so I did absolutely nothing other than read and write a little, and it helped my mood considerably. Britt went in to the beach where he'd spotted coconut palms and came back with three butchered coconuts. (Coconuts are, seriously, a tough nut to crack. When we saw the movie Castaway, we were delighted to see this represented realistically!)

So last night we had coconut-fried mahi for dinner, and this morning coconut french toast, and we still have lots of coconut left. Yum!

Today we snorkeled out on the reef, and it was great. Big fish, including two 5-foot tarpon that Britt inadvertently spooked out of a hole, and lots of interesting coral structure with tunnels and caves and canyons to swim through. Probably the most amusing fish encounter we had, though, was in the dinghy on the way out - we must have startled a squid, because it leapt out of the water and "flew" what must have been thirty feet across the water, gliding on the winglets of its mantle. If we could
only have maneuvered the dink quickly enough to get under it before it landed, we'd be eating calamari tonight.

Nobody else is here; a small catamaran came in after us and anchored some distance away, and they left today, so we have the place for ourself. It's odd, but I don't mind being alone nearly as much when we're actually alone. In fact, I like it! It's being surrounded by others who are all socializing with each other that bums me.

We'd been hoping to get over to San Salvador in the next few days, but the upcoming weather doesn't look favorable, and we have guests flying in toward the end of the week. So we've made the decision to go to George Town instead. There we can do laundry and grocery shopping, both sorely needed at this point, and hang out until our friends arrive. Depending on the weather then, we'll either take them out this direction and finally get to San Salvador, or head northeast along the Exuma chain and
start heading home.
- posted by S/V Windom @ 5/12/2007 [link]