After such a beautiful day yesterday, the sunrise this morning was not encouraging.....
And shortly we were treated to rain showers - but a beautiful rainbow - a full arc - from the big yacht all the way on the horizon.
(I don't have a camera lens that will take that wide angle so you have to see it in two photos...)
On the east side we were treated to a double rainbow!
And then we had wind/rain on and off most of the day. A good day for reading!
The wind is still howling - 20-25 knots, but the air is warm and the sky is sunny.
We do have a new "neighbor" anchored out behind us.....
We took the dinghies and went north to some coral heads.
And we saw several sharks!! This one was just sleeping on the bottom.
But this one was prowling.
Can you see the ray, half buried in the sand as camouflage?
Duane speared a lobster.
And another shark sleeping amongst the coral. (You can only see the gray body in the photo).
Back to the boat, lobster tail ready for the freezer - it needs a mate before it will be part of a meal.
I don't have a telephoto lens so the photo isn't the greatest. The yacht anchored behind us apparently set up a gazebo tent on shore near the ruins we walked to yesterday - we saw several folks wandering the desolate beach. At nightfall their huge dinghy sprinted them back to the "big boat". They may be pampered, but we have the same million dollar views!
We got some much needed rest....then went to shore for a walk-about.
I've searched and can't really find any history about Raccoon Cay. It's uninhabited.
On our walk we found one of those rock walls out in the brambles. So we followed it a ways.
Pretty cactus along the wall.
The wall lead us to this lovely old ruin. It is at the top of a small hill, they had a lovely view.
The structure is rather large - most of the time, these old ruins are a single room. But this one looked to be multiple rooms. I can't gauge the age, but there is old cement that is crumbling.
And we followed the rock wall back to a different area on the shoreline.
And close to shore there was another ruin - this time it did look like a one-room structure.
They had a lovely view as well!
And we had a lovely view on our walk back to the boat! We're the only ones here.
The day started out beautiful. Nice following seas. We're following What If.
I had the last of the Christmas dinner leftovers at the helm. Yummy but glad they're all gone now. (3 of the same meal is plenty!)
We went thru a shallow channel that we had never gone thru (Comer Channel) but it was no problem.
Just a wonderful sail to start with. The noise is just the wind, no engines were on. The wind was behind us so was just pushing us along. (Again, on some mobile devices, the video doesn't show up. You can view if you click "view web version" at the bottom of the page.)
And then things started to go downhill right before sunset. (We knew the winds would be strong based on the forecast).
No photos from the night....but the winds and waves got bumpy. A few un-tethered items ended up on the floor. We shortened the sail twice during the night to try to slow the boat down. Glad that night is over!!
We're anchored at Racoon Cay and it's just lovely here. What a difference 12 hours makes!!
Also surprised we have internet (although slow) as we didn't have internet here last year.
We'll rest a bit and plan our next adventure.
And if you're wondering exactly where Racoon Cay is - we're about 80 miles from Cuba!
We had sortof a lazy day.
We took the dinghy ashore and did a few little chores.
First to take a big bag of trash ashore. Even taking the trash is fun in the Bahamas!
Then on to the government dock to get our jerry cans filled with diesel. So we're truly topped off with fuel again. We're leaving mid-day tomorrow for the Ragged Islands where getting fuel is difficult or impossible. Since we expect to be there for many weeks, it's best that we make sure we're as well-supplied as possible.
Back to the anchorage - just 7 boats here - usually there are dozens.
Our sail from Georgetown to Long Island was better than expected. The winds were a little better than expected.
I got a good photo of What If -
I wanted rolls with dinner - so I looked up a Parker House Roll recipe. I've made plenty of bread, but I've never had much luck with rolls for some reason.
The normal drill - let the dough rise, punch down....
And let rise again.
They did turn out wonderfully! Just the right amount of sweet.
Can't believe it's almost Christmas!
I had been putting off doing the laundry for some reason....and by the time I had a load done, it started raining. (I know, I should have checked the radar...) So we strung up a line in the cockpit and it became the makeshift clothes dryer.
Later, we moved over to an anchorage closer to town. Wanted to go to the grocery store one last time before the holiday shut down.
In order to get to the dinghy dock, you have to go under the bridge - you can see the small opening in the center of the photo.
Things like this tickle me - not sure why but it's sortof like getting to drive thru a roadway tunnel when you were a kid.
The dinghy dock was empty compared to previous years! This normally is packed full of dinghies sometimes two deep. It was just the three Manta's dinghies today.
Off to the fairly well-stocked grocery store.
Ed and Cathy back at the dinghy dock with their haul of groceries.
Back to the boats - a little bit of a wet choppy ride going into the wind.
Settled in for a blustery evening. Gentle rocking made sleeping easy. Had to close the hatches as it got a bit chilly!
The three Mantas were up and moving at 6:30AM in order to be through the Georgetown cut before the tides and winds were opposing. Kind of a blustery start.
What If and No More Mondays getting their sails up.
It was a fine sail - seas were a little lumpy.
We caught 2 barracuda....this one was pretty big. We gave them back to the ocean of course.
Coming into the cut approaching Georgetown, we had to alter course for the Cape Mail boat. The captain was very nice on the radio.
And the anchorages at Georgetown are almost empty compared to previous years. This is a view of the Monument Beach anchorage. There usually are dozens of boats here.
