See the Stingray in the foreground?

You would have to stay in a marina and go out once in a blue moon for a day sail to avoid small craft advisories.  Surely you are as tired of hearing about high seas and too much wind as I am of feeling it. We left Whale Cay to work our way north on the Berry Islands.  We set a portion of our jib sail out and made over five knots.  It was wwwindy and the seas were eight to ten feet.   Echoes barreled through with sea spray in a permanent mist.  There are not many choices of anchorages that are safe in these kinds of conditions so we researched charts, guides and weather to choose accordingly.  We sailed about twelve miles to Soldier’s Cay.  We settled in after setting and resetting two anchors repeatedly.  Anchors tend to slip and not hold if they land on seagrass or if you happen to be a person pretending to be a sailor having a hard time wrestling with the cursed B. P.  Finally, all set, the roly polys were tolerable.   However, I did lose one of my two glass wine glasses set out to dry overnight.

There were a couple of other boats in this picturesque anchorage.  We deployed our dinghy and went ashore.  We hiked along the coral shores of the Northwest Providence channel watching the waves crash and break.  We swam at the beach on the west side and relaxed in the warm sun.  The princess was at peace.  Captain Thoughtful looked at me and my content dreamy smile and said, Let’s stay another day and take the day off.  We did not, and had not, had cell service in days so we couldn’t do emails, calls or bills.  No sailing, no anchoring, no business, we were just going to relax.

Our day off started at 2:00 am when Echoes began suddenly rolling and spinning.  Danny, our second, danforth anchor could take it no more and gave up.  John pulled him on board and we went back to bed rocking and rolling.  No, not in the fun way.  The following morning we worked for a couple of hours at trying to deploy Bruce, another type of second anchor called a bruce (aren’t I clever?), off of our beam to try and hold Echoes nose to the waves.  We were somewhat successful.  We grabbed our fishing pole and snorkeling gear and went to the beach for the rest of the day.

John fished and I snorkeled.  Some fishy rascals kept biting his lures off.   I snorkeled out to see if I could get a glimpse of the suspects but had no luck.  I enjoyed following a stingray though.  John decided to try some stinky old fish on a bobber after losing another lure.  Captain Needsmoretodo does not like bobber fishing.  I love it.  So we switched.  Another sailor on the beach commented, Kinda like watching water boil, huh?  By now you know that I am a world class daydreamer and this type of fishing is just my style.  I was standing in thigh deep, incredibly clear water watching my bobber and little fish ignore it.  I stood there contentedly for nearly an hour when who comes sniffing around not even fifteen feet in front of me?  Two sharks!   I screamed like a little girl and went running for land as they chased my stinky fish bait that was following me.  They looked like Reef Shark and were about six feet long.  They were a little over half the size of the Bull sharks on Bimini but menacing nonetheless.  I don’t want to catch a shark.  First of all, it was not the pole for it but more than that, do you remember my story of the black magic that comes with killing a shark?  However, I have never heard of being cursed for toying with them.  I commenced to tease them (from shore) with my bait.  It was fun.  But, maybe I was wrong.  Later I was checking out some canvas that had washed up on the rocks above me.  I picked up a corner of it and a crab lunged at me, slid down my body, on to my shoe and then jumped into the water.  I didn’t have my glasses on because I was snorkeling.  I thought it was a huge spider or a very small kraken.  It scared the shit out of me.  I will not tease another shark.