Monday April 4th: To Raccoon Cay

     We hung around Buena Vista in order to snorkel some on that side of the island.  There were several smaller dots of islands and a few reefs - plenty for us to spend a few hours gazing at marine life.  We towed the dinghy along with us as we moved.  The first sight was a rock with three good-sized grouper hanging around.  Grouper season opened in March, and we’ve been watching for them.  But as we had just begun our snorkeling, we decided to come back to the rock later to do fishing.  No reason to attract predators just yet.  

      Apparently just us being in the water is attractive to the barracudas, for two of them showed up shortly after we left the rock.  One didn’t seem too interested, but the other one kept coming closer.  Dan and I swam on either side of the dinghy, keeping a wary eye out.  It followed us for awhile and finally swam away, and the rest of our time in the water was free of all predators.

     This area was filled with fairly large fish of all kinds.  We watched queen angelfish and queen trigger fish and many schools of tangs, snappers, jacks, and grunts.  The sea floor was dotted with big, live conchs too, and we took the time to dive down to examine their colors but left them be.  We’ve had our fill of conch.  As we headed back toward the boat, we saw the largest grouper we’ve ever seen.  It must have been two feet long.  Dan was excited to go get his spear, but I reminded him that large grouper are usually poisonous.  Besides, that one would have been much too large for two people.  We went back to the rock we’d seen at the beginning of our underwater tour and I marked it with the dinghy while Dan swam back to the Willie for his Hawaiian sling.   Unfortunately, fishing is just not in the cards for us.  The grouper retreated deep under the rock and would not come out and all the other fish we’d seen around there disappeared.  We had canned salmon and cole slaw for lunch.

Nassau grouper - internet stock photo

     Two more boats came into the cove as we were getting ready to weigh anchor.  Maureen and John of Lucky Lani came over to say hello.  They were from Hawaii, but kept their sloop here on the East Coast.  They had just returned from a visit to Cuba, along with their buddy boat Texas Two-Step.  We urged them to go around the point and stop to meet Edward.  They went off to do their own snorkeling adventure and we set off for a short cruise down the Atlantic side of the Jumento chain to the South end of Raccoon Cay.

     According to the weather guru Chris Parker - whom everyone subscribes to or at least just listens to on the single side band radio (we fall into the listening category) - a front is moving through tonight bringing twenty to thirty knots from the North.  Dan thought this anchorage at Raccoon Cay would be best if such a thing happens tonight.  A front would be welcome - we would love a cooler wind and a break in the humidity - and I’m sure the islands themselves would welcome any rain.  

     We found a pretty little anchorage and once again are the only boat to occupy it.  We dropped the hook and set off in the dinghy to do a little beach exploring.  Dan informed me that this spot was well known for sea beans.  We found eight of them, one of them a ‘hamburger’ bean, so-named because its coloring makes it look like a hamburger on a bun.  There were no shells at all on this beach, but there was an awful lot of plastic trash.  Bottles, bags, shoes, pieces of milk crates, kids’ toys, pot warp, toothbrushes, and plastic cutlery were scattered everywhere.  We are starting to think about organizing a beach clean up cruise for the Jumentos. If every boat collected ten large bags of trash and brought them back to George Town for disposal, we could make a dent in what’s scattered all over the beaches and maybe bring people who had never been here to these otherwise beautiful islands.  

Sea beans - see the hamburger bean in the middle.

     No fish tonight, we had chicken salad for supper.  We both had the same thought tonight as we watched the sun set - How lucky are we?