Day 184, Monday December 23

Day 184 Monday December 23

Well today Blake leaves so we are in Marsh Harbour to send him off and stock up on supplies.  We are up at 5:30 so that Annie the cabdriver can get him to the airport shortly after 6 for his 7:45 flight to Nassau.  We are all a bit apprehensive as Sky Bahamas did not have Blake registered as a customer on the way here but Blake’s mom Debi has been in touch with them so all should be good.

Ross goes back to sleep for a couple hours while we head in for groceries to try to make Christmas dinner a bit special.  Christmas is pretty low key as most of our friends and family are so far away and there is no snow and next to no shops or places to put things.  Julie is struggling with knowing Kevin will be alone on Christmas. 

Ross reading as we sail along

By 10:00 we are weighing anchor and heading south for Lynyards Cay.  It is a bit of a zigzagging course to miss all the shifting sands so the sails are down, then up, then down, then up, then down again.  After 4 hours we are at our lunch hook spot for some snorkelling.  The swells from the Atlantic are a bit high so Julie stays with the boat as Dawson and Ross head out at Sandy Cay.  They see some large fish, but the best of the coral reef is out of their reach due to the Atlantic swell.

Snorkellers heading to site.

Snorkellers returning from site

We up anchor and move on to our anchorage for the night which is just an old coral reef island called Lynyard Cay where we have protection from the Northeast and east.  The winds are scheduled to calm down as they have been blowing about 15knots for the day.  There are a couple of beaches with sufficient depth near them so we pick one to anchor near and soon are dinghying to shore for the last hour of sunlight.  The beach is nice and there is a small live conch but no big ones.  

We find an old coconut that has some liquid in it and there is a machete on a table so we borrow it and after much hacking we reach the nut.  Unfortunately the milk stinks and the meat has all been absorbed.  Yuck is all thought in unison.  We won’t bother again to open an older one even if it sounds like it is okay.

The Cay is quite narrow so we can walk across to the Atlantic side and access the Sea of Abaco side.  The Atlantic bashes against the shore here with very little beach.  We can hear it from the boat and know it will rock us gently to sleep.

Back on the boat we pull out “Boggle”.  Of course Ross wins with his quick mind finding more words and creating new ones when required.  No surprise there.

We have a late dinner and early bed. Pretty typical in order to utilize the daylight.

Cheers

Julie and Dawson