Thursday, April 23, 2009
23 April - Day 50. Enough days in port already. It's time to go cruising. And so we head out of White Sound, Green Turtle Cay with a destination of Great Guana Cay, some 16 miles to the south. The Sea of Abaco becomes very shallow in this region and the only way to go south is by leaving protected waters and rounding the 'Whale'. The patch around Whale Cay is notoriously rough. Our approach was greeted with increasing swells and 20kt head winds. Rather than ruin a nice day's outing we merely reversed course and headed to the north end of Manjack Cay; only about 8 nm away. We drop the hook in 6' of crystal clear water over a sand and grass bottom. While walking the beach a 40" black ray, which looks just like a B-2 bomber, starts buzzing our feet. He's so close that his wings slap our shins. Back on Nellie I go over with a scouring pad to clean the bottom. There's some grass lodged in the genset's thruhull. Could the solution to the raw water flow problem be that easy? There are sand dollars, conch, and clams all over the bottom. The water temp is 75F, a little warmer than the 35F we left in the Chesapeake 50 days ago. 20nm today: 1301nm total. DBH
