Saturday April 16: Back to the Exumas

     Dan was up at 6:30 am to catch Chris Parker’s forecast.  When I arose he told me he thought it would be better for us to cross back over to the Exumas, that he was afraid the anchorage at Little San Salvadore was not the best place for the wind that was predicted.  Like many of these Northers, this would last a couple of days, and any place we went to would have to be a place we could stay for the duration.  After our experience at Little Exuma during the last blow, Dan wanted to make sure we would be comfortable this time around.  We wanted to see a few things in the Exumas that we hadn’t seen on the way down, and if we headed North with the other two boats, we might end up bypassing the Exumas altogether.  So we made ready for our passage back across the Sound and bid goodbye to Freed Spirit and Presence-ing.  They too had decided to change their plans, and last we heard they were headed to a marina in Eleuthera some sixty miles North, to stay there for the next few days.

     We had a fairly calm crossing.  There was a small swell, but the winds were enough to give us an extra half-knot.  We raised both main and jib.  When we got into the deep water, Dan rigged one of the fishing rods and set down to fashion a new plug lure from a piece of driftwood he’d salvaged at Cat Island.  He is nothing if not resourceful!  By lunch time we had two rods cast.  Around one pm we had one bite that looked promising, but the fish spit the hook and swam away.  At least he didn’t take the lure!  We never had another bite.  We don’t have the best luck at fishing.

Dan's new lure.

     We got to our intended destination - Musha Cay - around four-thirty.  The magician David Copperfield owns this and several surrounding cays and we’d heard about an underwater sculpture of a steel piano and stone mermaid that he’d commissioned.  This was one of the things we’d come back to the Exumas to see.  Our guide book had a picture of it and somewhere - though we couldn’t for the life of us find where - we’d seen a chart that marked the spot with a small piano.  We cruised in through the Mucha Cay cut and around the backside of the Cay itself, anchoring near the beach of the extremely exclusive Copperfield Resort.  ($37,500/night - no kidding!) People were obnoxiously zipping around on jet skis and in very large well-equipped fishing boats, but no one was snorkeling or SCUBA diving anywhere.  We launched the dinghy and motored around, looking for any sign of the piano and mermaid but found nothing.  All we had to go on was the picture in the guide book and the advice from Nieve on Freed Spirit to go at slack water because there was a strong current.  A bit frustrated after forty minutes of searching, we went back to the Willie to make use of the internet.  This was also a bit frustrating - Google searches came up with many sailing blogs where people described snorkeling or diving at the mermaid, but they didn’t say where the thing was.  Then I Googled “GPS location” along with Copperfield piano and mermaid and came up with yet another sailing blog that gave exactly that information.  I relayed it to Dan who plugged it into our chart plotter.  Turns out the sculpture isn’t at Musha Cay at all, but at Rudder Cut Cay, and just around the corner from an anchorage we’d used on our way to George Town back in January.  

     We hauled anchor and went over to Rudder Cut Cay and there it was, in about twelve feet of water.  There is no cell phone coverage here, though, so no internet to help us spread the word right now.  We anchored in a snug little cove nearby that is out of the current, and will protect us from wind and swell.  We will go snorkel the piano tomorrow.  

"The Musician" - internet stock photo.