Nicole & Braden in the Abacos
26 December 2008 | 26 50.5'N:77 23.4'W, Manjock Cay, Abacos
Nicole and Braden arrived in Marsh Harbor on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day we sailed to Manjock Cay, north of Green Turtle Cay. There is an Ipswich tradition of the Frozen Clam Dip in which folks gather on Crane Beach at noon on Christmas Day, run into the ocean, dunk, have a drink, then leave. In empathy with our shivering homefolks, we did the Boiling Conch Dip. We anchored about 100 yards off the beach at the northen tip of Manjock and swam in. Braden saw a three-foot sea turtle on the way and there were lots of fish in the little bay. Lots of fun until, on shore, some fishermen asked us that awkward question: "So, how many sharks did you see?" We assumed they were kidding. They said they'd been catching sharks there all afternoon. They said there were lots of sharks and sting rays in this bay. One of the men tossed Braden a small bait fish and told him to hold it in the water, which Braden did. Immediately a four-foot black ray swam up, covered his hand and ate the fish. W e walked away toward the rocks we'd planned to dive around, wondering what to do. None of us felt like snorkeling any more. As we walked back along the beach we looked at Catharsis, anchored out with the dinghy hanging behind it, looked at our snorkel gear, looked at the beach and watched the sun approaching the horizon. We had no choice but to do our fastest swim ever back to the boat. The next morning we moved to a different beach. No sharks, but the ray (or his twin) was hanging out there, too.