Buena Vista Cay, Ragged Islands, Bahamas

 We left Hog Cay in the morning - and had a fantastic sail about 15 north to Buena Vista Cay.  The winds were perfect for a speedy sail - with 2 reefs in the main - going over 8 knots regularly.  Really fun!  Messy chartplotter since we've got lots of previous tracks here - but you see at this instant we were going 8.7 knots over ground and the true wind speed was 24.4. 

Got settled in close to shore near Edward's house ruins with Meshugga a few hundred yards away.

Went for a walk as Penny and Mike had never been ashore here.

 

Beautiful shoreline.

 

The winds were howling and the ocean was churning!

 

But a nice calm anchorage on the protected side of the island!

Lovely dinner on Meshugga again and fun conversation.  Way too much fabulous food as usual and we all left with full bellies!

Hog Cay, Ragged Islands, Bahamas

 Before breakfast, we pulled anchor and left our special spot at Little Ragged.  Time to start moving north!

 

We had a great sail, engines off almost the entire way up to the anchorage at Hog Cay.  Meshugga looked nice in the sunlight.

Dee sent this photo of us underway.

After we got settled, Dee called for a walk ashore! 

 

The beautiful anchorage view from the hilltop trail.

 

Mike used his really nice camera and you'll see several shots from that today.  Thanks Mike!

Sojourn up close from the hilltop.

 

And the girls on the hilltop!

 

 Out to the ocean side, glorious day!

 

 

Dee having fun.

 

Duane walks faster than the rest of us....so he often is waiting for us ahead.

Mike and Penny enjoying the walk.

 

Kinda hard to see in this photo, but Mike and Penny are walking on a rocky ledge that is about 50' above the water surface.

 

This trail has some pretty rough terrain - Mike being the gentleman!

 

It looks like we're walking along the shoreline but we're actually on a cliff high above the surf.

Mike took these fabulous shots.

 The view varies depending on which side of the island we are hiking.  Here the bay is more protected.

 

 

Some of the terrain is difficult on this trail!

 

We're at low tide, a very shallow bay.

 

This bay sports a "conch nursery" - hundreds, if not thousands of small conch.  They're all apparently alive and well.  I assume they just meditate safe inside their shell when the tide is out.

 

The lovely view back to the anchorage.  Still a mile to go on the trail though!

 

Back to the boats!

A pretty good hike - extra serving tonight at dinner!

 

 

And speaking of dinner - we were invited over to Meshugga for a lovely evening!  

Little Ragged Cut, Ragged Islands, Bahamas

 We spent pretty much the entire day on taxes.....but happy to report they're finished for the year.  

We didn't even notice until too late to wave bye to Meshugga - but they're only going to the next bay.  They left this evening to take advantage of the high tide.

We'll leave in the morning (we don't have to worry about tide too much because our draft is less than theirs).  Next stop will be Hog Cay for a day or so....then we'll be heading slowly north.  Sigh.  It's always hard to believe that the season is drawing to a close again!

Little Ragged Cut, Ragged Islands, Bahamas

 Beautiful sunrise over Dragonfly.

 

The winds weren't as strong as predicted so we went for another long snorkel. 

 

I took a little video of the pretty reef.

 

 And off to a different reef.

 

This large French angelfish was lumbering near me.

They are sort of curious - not as afraid of us snorkelers as most other fish.  It turned towards me slowly.

 Then was on it's way again, doing fishy things.

 

It was a nice clear water day.

 

View at the end of Little Ragged.  Probably the last time we'll be down this way this season.

 

Back at the boat later in the afternoon, Mike was doing some "solo" work on the Hobie.

 

And Mike from Kite came over to the boat and offered some extra fish.  I took a snapper as that's a fish I love and don't have one in the freezer.

 

We did a nice BBQ on the beach  - several other cruisers joined us - Mike from Kite, Guy from Breathless and Chris from Dragonfly.  Dee made some hot dog buns that were really good!  Fun day.