Water Cay - Jumentos

We were quite surprised to discover that Thompson Cay and Salt Pond at Long Island were very relaxed and what we remember of cruising in the late 1990's. We attended church on Sunday and the people were warm and welcoming. I had never attended an Anglican church before, but we will go back if we find ourselves there when services happen. We do not participate in all the things that they do, but that did not stop us from worshipping with them and they with us. Olivia, who owns Fox Auto, the car rental place in Salt Pond, generously gave us a ride back to the dinghy dock. We were thankful, it was a long hot walk on the Queen's Highway to church. We have yet to find an island or cay that does not have a 'Queen's Highway.' At Long Island Breeze Resort, we rejoined cruising friends and met new ones. Mike owns the establishment and runs the morning cruiser's net on VHF. He is a very relaxed guy and always made us laugh with his joke of the day. I hope we go back there.

Today we sailed mostly down wind, working our way through the Comer Channel and down to Water Cay in the Jumentos. We had planned to sail all the way to Flamingo Cay, however the anchorage at Water Cay looked mighty inviting after a long day of watching for coral heads. Robert and Kathy on B&G took the same journey today and anchored off our starboard side. We splashed the dinghy, took a walk on the beach and to the ocean side of the cay - barefoot even. It was a tough walk across that mean rock. We stopped on one path when we ran into puncture vines - I must remember my shoes when leaving Hold Fast! While on the beach, we saw more fish than we have seen since we came to the Bahamas. Back on Hold Fast, Myron broke out a casting pole and used our conch cleaning scraps for bait. Within minutes we had three fish for a pan fry dinner. We just finished dinner and I was so glad to be eating fish again.

All in all, it was a fantastic day. Great sailing, beautiful water, no mishaps, fish dinner - I cannot find a thing to complain about.

Oh, I will mention that our Outback Charge Controller for the solar panels gave up the ghost. That was highly disappointing and a good lesson that we need a back up. Myron rigged it so that the panels directly charge the batteries, but without the smart charger, we do not get near the efficiency. For example, we used to see 40 amps coming down, but now the most we see is 16 amps. We are learning to live on that 16 amps and will deal with fixing the problem when we get back to the states.

Love to all,
Dena

Posted via Ham radio.
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