Pease Crows Nest

Friday & Saturday April 1 & 2: Flamingo Cay

We spent a quiet night at Water Cay and were the last boat to leave the cove on Friday morning. The other two went North, we continued South, a three hour cruise to Flamingo Cay. (In case you’re wondering, there are no flamingoes in Flamingo Cay. Maybe there once were.) This little island is one of the prettiest places in the Bahamas. We entered a little bight at the top of the island and dropped the hook. There are reefs all along the shore and several little spots all throughout the cove - snorkeling paradise! There were also several pocket beaches dotting the shore. We almost couldn’t decide where to go first.

Flamingo Cay

The water is eighty-two degrees here, but we still wore our wetsuits so we could spend a long time in the water. I think we were in almost two hours Friday afternoon. We saw some of the most amazing coral forests - blazing with colors and filled with fish of all sizes and species. There were many parrotfish and queen triggerfish - some of the most colorful fish down here. Dan spied a very large grouper and he finally saw a trumpet fish. As we moved from spot to spot we noticed a three foot barracuda keeping an eye on us. I decided to stay close to Dan; barracudas are not known to be aggressive unless you bother them, but those teeth are a bit unsettling. Safety in numbers; I thought if I stayed close to Dan, the ‘cuda would go away. It did, but presently was back with a slightly larger companion. We continued our underwater adventure and then noticed a third barracuda had joined the group, this one close to five feet long. Dan and I surfaced to confer. “Are they gathering??” I asked, only half-joking. He said maybe it was a good time to go for a walk on the beach.

Queen trigger fish - internet stock photo. Yes, they really look like that!

Barracuda - internet stock photo.

We pulled the dinghy ashore and shed the wetsuits and did a little shelling. A large inflatable dinghy came zipping into the cove with four people and a dog. They had a power cat around the corner, they said, and were checking out this cove to see if it was less rolly. “Are you really from Camden, Maine?” They wanted to know. We said yes. Turned out they were from Hope, Maine. This seems to be what happens - we are constantly meeting people from Maine or who have mutual friends in Maine. Our new friends Libby and Frank, Lainie and Joe, and dog Jasper walked the beach with us, eager to find out just how small a world it was. Libby and Frank sped off in their dinghy to bring their boat around and we talked with the other two and tossed a stick for Jasper. They ended up inviting us over for drinks that night.

Their boat, a fifty-two foot power catamaran, is a boat show showpiece. The entire Willie Dawes interior could fit nicely into their main salon seating area. It was a pleasant hour with our new friends swapping stories of our cruising adventures and getting to know each other a little, enjoying the luxury of cold drinks - with ice - and air conditioning. When we left, they offered some frozen fish to go along with the ice, but we were afraid it wouldn’t keep through the night, and declined. They decided to bring it by in the morning. Would we accept it then? You bet we would! We watched the sun set from their upper deck, thanked them for their hospitality, and returned to our snug little boat.

Saturday we were up early and eager to go do some more snorkeling. Frank and Joe came by with the promised fish and ice and said they planned to head out soon. Since they are also heading South through the Jumentos, we will probably see them again.

We set off for our morning snorkel expedition - Dan in the dinghy, and me in the water. I found our first conch within a few minutes and Dan dropped the dinghy anchor and joined me on a conch hunt. In ten minutes we had eight conch. They were everywhere, all of them with nice thick well-formed lips. We had to stop ourselves from gathering them up. I’m actually not a big fan of the taste of conch, but the shells are really beautiful.

The rest of our snorkeling was just as exciting. The reefs here on Flamingo Cay are extraordinary. Again we saw lots of different, colorful corals and lots of fish. Today’s highlights were a queen angelfish and several very small deep blue fish that we have yet to identify. We also saw large schools of snappers and bar jacks and had to keep reminding ourselves that we had conch and fish already for today, and had no place to keep anything cold for the future. Dan had his spear with him but reluctantly didn’t hunt with it.

Queen angel fish - internet stock photo.

When we were getting a little chilled and a lot pruny from the water, we headed over to one of the little pocket beaches we hadn’t gotten to yesterday to deal with the conch. We chose four of them to open and four to put back. Dan settled onto a rock with his claw hammer and knife and expertly cut little holes in the shells to pull the meat out. We then chose two shells to bring back to the boat - that’s all we’ve decided to keep. We left the other two ashore for anyone to pick up if they want them.

Back on the boat Dan delved into the work of cutting up the slippery, tough conch meat. The Youtube videos make this look so easy, but in reality the meat is hard to hang onto and very tough to cut. He cut up and pounded up two of the snails for grilling, which we did immediately and ate them for a late lunch. He cut up the other two into fine little pieces which we ended up sautéing in a little olive oil, butter, and wine along with some garlic and onion. I went to get out the frozen fish, which we’d buried at the bottom of our insulated bag, in layers of plastic bags, and it was still frozen. And the ice with it was still intact! Amazing since it’s about eighty-five degrees out. So we decided to hang onto it for another day and just have conch today. I served the sautéed conch over rice for supper and we ate in the cockpit, watching the stingrays come feed on the conch bits that went overboard when Dan was cutting them up. I tried to get a picture of one, hard to do through the water like that.