Little Ragged Island, Bahamas

 Woke to a beautiful sunrise with What If in the foreground.

 

 

The water was just calm and clear - Now & Zen

 

 

Bluejacket

 

New friends Russ and Carol on Spirit 

 

 

We're off to the reef to take advantage of the last no-wind day for a while.  There is a "blow" coming this afternoon.  Duane can't go snorkeling for a few days because he has an eye infection.  Luckily, our friends on Roam had a brand new tube of eye antibiotic/steroid.  It's working wonders and Duane will be back in the water in a couple of days.  So I hopped a ride with Ed and Cathy.

 

 

At the reef, Cathy throws out the dinghy anchor.

 

We're in a cut just south of Little Ragged Island.  We normally wouldn't get to come out to these lovely reefs because it's open to the east winds and ocean swells.  But today is almost dead calm.

We were not disappointed!  Lovely coral.

 

 

A nice Nassau grouper.  (They're protected right now for spawning - season opens Feb 28th)

 

 

An ocean triggerfish.

 

 

A porkfish.

 

 

More lovely coral.

 

 

Pretty queen angelfish.

 

 

We three teamed up - Cathy and I spotted the lobsters and sent Ed down deep to retrieve them.

 

 

Pretty successful - we had about a 50% capture rate.

 

 

Some of those critters were hiding deeper than others.

 

 

Another grouper.  Seems like they're abundant in off-season.  They'll all be in hiding starting March 1st!

 

Russ and Carol from Spirit were also out on the reef.

 

 

After more than 3 hours in the water, we were all wrinkly!  Back to the anchorage.

 

 

The wind is picking up a bit so we had good timing.

 

 

The haul from today.  4 nice lobsters.  We'll grill some tonight.

 

Later we all gathered on a little wind-protected little bay.  Roam is anchored about 1/2 mile away but Michelle and Clark dinghied over to join us.

And we were treated to a beautiful sunset with a small green flash at the end!  

 

Settled in for a windy night and next couple of days.