Well it seemed like a good idea…at the time
23 May 2011
Karen
Monday, May 23, 2011
We left Spanish Town 9:30 this morning and had a lovely run up the Sir Francis Drake channel out to Anegada. The shallows outside the channel as we approached were lovely, clear, clear water and we sawTurtles, starfish and two rays on the way in. The mooring field here is in extremely shallow water, so we took a mooring on the outside and were a little disappointed with the clarity of the water inside the anchorage. So we decided to take the tender out to explore.. As the island is very low and not terribly wide – Sandi says let’s circle the whole island. Well it seemed like a good idea at the time…but what none of us, except Jim who wisely looked at the chart before we left, considered was that the reef on the south end of the island stretched for miles. I mean MILES….like 25 MILES – and wide to boot. A few miles past the island we thought there was a good place to snorkel, so we thru out the anchor and three of us jumped in for a look. There were huge coral heads, with lots of hurricane damage. But sadly and surprisingly – NO fish. The water was exceptionally clear, and the coral heads were completely surrounding us so finding our way out of the area was touch and go for a while. Then as we continued south and way East to the end of the reef we kept getting further, and further and FURTHER from land…next stop…Portugal? Finally we reached the end of the reef and were able to make the turn and begin heading back toward the anchorage. We are so far away that the island is invisible and we are relying on the chart plotter to direct us toward the channel…after quite a while the island pops up, then finally we arrive back at the boat. Our little trip around the island took us 3 HOURS! Hmm…remember what happened to the last guys to take a three hour tour? Sure felt that way for a while there…well except there was only one little storm on the horizon, and we mostly missed all the rain.
While John was grilling burgers for dinner we had the after deck lights on and were able to see 4 turtles feeding directly behind the boat, then a Tarpon came to visit for a long while. Jim and I headed up to the fordeck to see the stars which the weather has hidden from us for weeks and we were treated to a clear sky and a satellite as well as a shooting star. A lovely finish to today, however Anegada is not quite what we all were hoping for so tomorrow it is off to Marina Key and a potential snorkeling trip to Monkey Point on Guana Island.