Allen Cay and Leaf Cay are located right on the edge of the banks; shallow water on one side and very deep water on the other. With the tide riding and falling, the water is forced onto, and off of the banks to and from the deeper water, through the few small cuts between cays. Because of this, there can be a very strong tidal current in this anchorage. We went swimming off the back of the boat once during an ebb tide, but put a couple lines out the back of the boat to grab onto to make it less likely anyone would be swept away..it was pretty fun hanging onto a line and the clear ocean water rushing around you.

Leaf Cay is populated by tons and tons of Iguanas. These protected little critters dot the beach & readily come begging for snacks. We fed them left-over carrots, which they seemed to readily enjoy. Funny enough, the larger ones seemed to have poorer eyesight and had some trouble locating a carrot tossed to them, while the smaller ones didn't seem to have this difficulty. Later, with just the four of us sitting on the beach (Sue and I in lawn chairs and the kids playing) two very large high-speed tour boats pulled up on the beach (one either side of us) and began unloading passengers. We felt a bit like a tourist spectacle ourselves.They gave us some grapes to feed the iguanas. We found we could break the grapes into numerous pieces and push them onto a sharp stick & the little critters would come right up and take the food off the end of or stick. Very cool place.

After a few days relaxing and enjoying this place, we sailed south for Norman Cay.