Spanish Cay

After a long and restful night at Great Sale Cay we had coffee watching the sunrise. There were 2 boats also anchored. s/v Island Gal II is a boat we met on the ICW to Lake Worth. They also left the inlet with us on Wednesday. The other boat, s/v Magic, was anchored next to us at Mangrove Cay and he followed our route to Spanish Cay. He is a single hander from Portland, Maine with his Maine coon cat.


Jane plotted the course into the GPS according to the way points in our Explorer chart. Our GPS also has a course line but we back it up with the Explorer charts and VPR. This stands for visual piloting rules. In other words.....keep you eyes open and take nothing for granted! Once again we were reminded of the challenges of sailing in Bahamian water. When the sun is out and clear you can easily see the colors of water depth. But when clouds are in the sky they create dark spots which appear as coral heads or shallower water. The perfect scenario is a sunny day without clouds. Our routes across the bank however did not have any obstructions and was fairly deep all the way....15-20'.



The admiral...on duty!



The captain...off duty!





We arrived at Spanish Cay by 3PM and tied up. Our first visitor when we arrived was a four foot shark who did a swim around the boat to check us out, not as friendly looking as the dolphins we had greet us on the ICW. Our friend on s/v Magic arrived by 4:30PM. We can't clear in until morning since the customs officer is not here. We are the only visitors on the island. It is off season here. They advertised $1.50 per foot but gave us the slip for $1 per foot. We don't need to hook up to electricity since our solar and wind generator are giving us the boost we need.


Our reception committee