Allens-Pensacola Cay, Abacos

The weather finally calmed down enough for us to leave our anchorage in Baker's Bay to cross Whale Cut.  Our plan for Wednesday, June 22 was to go through the cut and anchor next to Allens-Pensacola Cay.  This single cay used to be two separate cays but after a hurricane it became one, hence the double-barrel name. The weather was very nice, sunny and warm with just a little bit of rain - not unusual during this month of June.

Once we came through the cut we found a good anchorage with decent holding in sand and grass among four other trawlers and a very large ship.  Later, a couple of sailboats came in as well.

When we first arrived, it started to rain so we closed all our strataglass.

After awhile we had a surprise visit from Daniel, our friend from the sailing vessel, Scout.  He and Micah had just anchored and saw our boat. We hadn't seen them since we left Hope Town and now instead of Daniel's girlfriend, his sister Caitlin was visiting for a few days.  They are much braver (or more foolhardy than us) and had gone through Whale Cut the day before when we thought it would be too rough with 4-5 foot waves.  It was a pretty difficult crossing for them and a tough introduction to the world of cruising for Caitlin!

Jonny and I went snorkeling on a very shallow reef and saw lots of sea urchins and what appeared to be coral "saplings."  It was almost like snorkeling over a desert landscape.  Some of the taller corals reached almost to the top of the water. It was so shallow that you had to avoid standing so as not to crush the sea life.

Our buddies came out to snorkel as we were heading back to Zendo.  They suggested having dinner together and offered to bring it over to Zendo to share with us.  Micah, who is a vegetarian, did all the cooking and prepared a delicious (and huge) taco salad that we all enjoyed (along with copious amounts of beer and rum).

We had a lot of fun with them eating, drinking, telling stories, etc.  They are very nice guys and Caitlin was a sweetie.  We were glad to have another night to spend with them.

 

They are definitely traveling on a shoestring and didn't have a light for their dinghy so we gave them one of what Lynn calls our fairy lights.  These are small solar lights that you inflate to a cylinder which we found in one of the many camping supply stores in Burlington VT.

All in all we had a very fun day as we worked our way back to Florida!