"Hops, time to wake up"
It was what, 4:30 a.m. GAWED, don't Smuttynose know the time ??

However, Smuttynose wanted me to marvel along with him...
In my morning doozy state (no comments please) I stepped out into the cockpit and truly did a jaw drop, and said hey, Smuttynose, I'm glad you woke me up !

And marvel we did, indeed !

The water, which last night, had us rolling and jostling all over the place, was now as flat as could be. It wasn't even lapping against the hull of the boat. There was a bit of mist enveloping everything everywhere.

But the best of all of this, looking up, the night skies were lit up in our very own, quite spectacular, planetarium effect. There were so many stars, and then, you would blink, and there would be many more !

In the sounds of silence, I can't even begin to describe the magical and impressive beauty that Mother Nature was gifting us with.



Within moments it was time to raise anchor, and head out.

The deck lights that were turned on to help in the process, illuminated the clarity of the water and we could see bottom. Another marvel, here it was 5 a.m., in the spectcaular beauty and darkness of night, we could see clear through the bottom of the water. There are no words to describe this. Wow. Breathtaking.

And then we were on our way, and watching the sun start to rise,





There was no wind today to speak of, so we motored along...

The water was calm, the colours of the views, beyond spectacular.



No wildlife to speak of except for the flying fish. And hey, if I can't catch a dolphin in an exciting action shot, there sure as hell ain't going to be a shot of a flying fish. I did try though. Just so you know.



We got our fishing rod out but caught nothing, which is probably okay at this point, as even if we caught something, we are still not sure we'd know what we'd do with it.

Before we knew it, we were seeing the Southern Berry Islands.

We motored past Chub Cay, rounded Texaco Point and headed into Frazers Hog Cay, where we went past the quite deserted (and some of them quite iffy-looking mooring balls) and decided to anchor instead.

Dave had me standing at the bow watching the depths of the water (for corals and reefs etc)...



And then, once anchored, I recorded my numbers, we turned the engine off, and instantly heard the silence. I called Dave up, and told him to listen... This is what is meant when people say that silence is deafening.

There was no sounds of anything. No crackle of electrical lines. No birds. No wildlife. No lapping of the water against the hull. No planes, trains or automobiles. Ok, sorry, getting carried away here. There was nothing. Truly, a desolate area of nothingness. Our ears were ringing with nothingness. Impressive.

Our first order of business was to get dinghy off the deck. Once Dinghy was all set up, we rode her into the Berry Islands Club, and found it to be deserted.





We peeked through the windows, and the bar was quite stocked, however, other than that piece of evidence, there was no one around, but the birds screeching our arrival. Amazing what a loud racket these things make !



We clambered off the deck and went around the bend to the beach, where we happily waded into the warm waters, and then plunged headfirst into the water, snorkelling along, seeing a few colorful fish hiding in the sandy holes, coming across a brightly brown and gold speckled starfish that had to be a foot wide. Spectacular.

It truly was not the best of beaches, littered with some bits and pieces of garbage probably washed onshore, some broken bottles, and we didn't stay too long, preferring to head back to the boat where Smuttynose emerged with some scrub brushes and a grin, he was all set to scrub Banyan's bottom. WTF Chores ??

However, given that we were in the beautiful waters, and swimming, I figured i'd give him a bit of a hand.



First order of business had us checking our anchor. Then we scrubbed Banyan's bottom, removing most of the green slime that has developed over the last months. Dave checked on the anodes, and assessed that they were still good to go, but will probably need to be replaced shortly. He scraped a few barnacles off the propeller. And then called it quits.

By then we noticed a few others boats come into "our" harbor. Some had picked up the mooring balls and the rest of them anchored. We were no longer alone!
It was a great evening spent watching the sun set and I hate to admit that we were asleep by 8 ! What an exciting nightlife we lead.