Hog Cay, Ragged Islands, Bahamas

We visited the other Manta in the anchorage - we met Bruce and Sandra on Namid.  This is their first time to Hog Cay (long time cruisers) so weren't too familiar with the trails.  Sandra was looking at a trail map on her phone - and it was the trail map I made 2 or 3 years ago and shared with many folks.  Cool that it's still circulating!

After a nice chat aboard Namid, we made plans to meet ashore and go for a hike.

The cruiser hut is looking a bit battered.  We'll have to hire the local fellows to patch the thatching as I don't think any of the cruisers have the skills.   Hurricane Michelle (I think) really battered the west facing cays.  Washed out huge amounts of sand.

 

 Really hard to see in these photos, but several feet of sand is just gone.

 I posed in front of the shoreline - this used to be solid sand - gently sloping to the ocean.

  

The old "volleyball court" is now a tumble of sheets of soft limestone that has been uncovered when the sand all washed away.

This is where the "tent" would be erected for the Valentines auction.  We would normally be sitting on soft sand here but now you can see it's just bare limestone.  To put it back the way it was would require a dump truck, not shovels!

I guess we always want things to stay the way they were, Mother Nature says different!

But it's still beautiful!!

We decided to go up Bernie's trail - we were surprised that it didn't look like anyone had hiked it this year.  The trail was strewn with lots of leaves and debris.  

Beautiful view of the two Mantas!! 

Sandra and Bruce from Namid along the trail.

Gorgeous views along the highest point on the trail

The ocean side was kicked up from the strong east winds.

Back to the boats for lunch and relaxing.  A nice little rainstorm came up and gave the boat a nice washdown.

Before I knew it, all the dinghies from the anchorage went ashore for sundowners.  I was baking banana nut bread so had to wait a little while for that to finish.  

Met some new folks and caught up with some "old" ones....

Forgot to mention - at some point a pretty squid decided to jump from the ocean to the in-hospitable deck of our boat.  Unfortunately, I didn't notice until it was too late....

We'll probably be at Hog or close-by for a while.  There are fairly strong east winds forecast for the next 7-10 days.....good place to be!