Day 4: Wifi and Cell Service…hmmm
21 May 2012 | Great Sale Cay to Green Turtle Cay, umm, nope, how about Crab Cay on Little Abaco Island instead?
flat seas, sunny with a few clouds and the typical afternoon sprinkle
So it's Monday again, which means work! Funny thing is, the Islands in Little Bahama Bank and the Northern Abacos aren't exactly "wired in". We had a light cell signal in Great Sale Cay, but Luna Sea's signal wasn't strong enough to guarantee contact with friends that were flying in for a few days, so they headed out at 07:00 toward Green Turtle Cay, the first "more" populated island in the Abacos where their friends were arriving via plane + water taxi. We slept a little longer and opted to watch the service as we circled north of Great Sale, leaving at 09:04. We made it all the way to Little Sale Cay at 10:22 and "poof" goodbye cell service! We headed back toward Great Sale and opted to drift for an hour while D called into his morning conference call. It was pretty funny watching him hold his phone in the air while on his headset trying to boost his signal. I had to make him a tent outside because if he came inside he would lose signal. I tried to fish, but was depressingly unsuccessful...there just doesn't seem to be any fish in the Little Bahama Bank, we can't even see them through the crystal clear water!
Anyway, after a few hours of drifting and "working remotely" we were clear to head East toward Green Turtle. We were 2 hours away when we made an executive decision to call it a day. We'd been motoring now for three full days (FL to West End to Great Sale, plus today) and we just wanted a chill night. Derek had started to get delirious in the heat and was starting to make his own rap videos with his phone...I think Matt is the only one who actually received and early preview of D's new single. I pulled out my charts and found a protected anchorage off the Northern tip of Little Abaco Island called Crab Cay. We radioed ahead to Luna Sea with our plans and altered our course to Crab Cay.
Crab Cay was beautiful! We pulled into anchorage to find only one monohull at anchor. The waters were clear and a light breeze allowed us to easily set anchor in the sandy bottom. The best part was we were greeted by two dolphins that playfully swam within a foot of our port hull; one of the dolphins even altered his swim and breathing pattern to quickly blow air/water at us several time as if to say "hello" (check out the video). Being that it was only 16:30, we grabbed the paddleboard and a few beers and decided to explore the waters and beaches in Crab Cay.
Let's just say I'm not the most coordinated paddle boarder when (at least not when I'm in the front contending natural water/wave movement from the front and Derek's movement behind me). Regardless of the shaky start, we were able find our dolphin friends again and paddle right alongside them for nearly 10 minutes! They headed into deeper water so we opted to head to shore. Right as we encountered small shore waves and became a little more unstable, we looked beneath us to find a 4 ft nurse shark (actually Alana and Ella are doing research to verify the shark type)! I sat down just to make sure I didn't shake either one of us off the board! After safely landing on shore we explored the shoreline which was pretty rocky, but still beautiful. It was filled with flora and the palm trees were filled with coconuts. Derek perfected his throwing arm and aim and knocked down a few coconuts. He went "castaway" style and found some knife-like and hammer-like rocks and cracked 'em open. It was ridiculous how full the coconut was! There was so much coconut water that we couldn't finish one between the two of us. The drink was so clean and quenching confirming your ability to survive on coconut juice if ever you were stranded on an island!
We finally paddled back to the boat before the bugs came out, made some drinks and Derek grilled up dinner. In the peace of the night, we slipped into sleep as the boat bobbed in the wind wondering what tomorrow will bring...