Norman's Cay
We had been in Shroud Cay for a couple of days in two different anchorages, the first of which had been quite rough. We had more protection in our second anchorage, and there was no sideways roll so we all had a good night. Then on Friday morning we did the short run to Norman’s Cay. Our friends, Martha and George, would be catching a small plane from Norman's Cay on Saturday afternoon so we were boating
on a schedule. As with Shroud Cay, we favoured a different anchorage over the planned one and ended up at the Norman's Cay - MacDuff's anchorage. We got reservations at MacDuff's Restaurant for lunch. We dinghied in, catching lots of spray on the way. Then we pulled the dinghy up on shore and secured it with the anchor. We had a lovely lunch with George and Martha treating. Heather heard her favourite song, Shivers by Ed Sheeran, and got up and danced with our waiter, RJ. He was a great dance partner.
After the bill was settled someone mentioned that there was a dinghy floating away from shore. Cam and George started running back to the dinghy and when Heather and Martha got there they had stripped down and started swimming to the dinghy but it was moving from shore too fast. Our beloved Dory was floating away! They went to get some kayaks that were on the beach on a rack but the kayaks were locked together. One of the waitresses came out and said her boss was bringing her boat around to help. We waited... and waited. We were very worried about maritime law that says that the person who salvages the boat can claim it if the captain is not on board. Without Dory, we would not be able to get to and from our boat when we were on anchor, or enjoy hikes or creek explorations. It is essentially our car and a dinghy in the Bahamas is an absolute necessity. The woman showed up with her boat and went straight to Dory. She tied it up and towed it back to Cam, who was waiting eagerly on shore. Another boat showed up right after she tossed the line to Cam. Phew! That might have been a close call. Cam gave her a big tip as we were very grateful for her help. We were so relieved. George called it the sequel, Retrieving Dory! As it turned out, the anchor and all the line were still on shore! It must have been rough enough to detach the line from the cleat. It's such a small cleat that we decided we should secure the anchor line in two places as a backup in the future.
After lunch, once we had gotten over the shock of almost losing Dory, we decided to try something called Drift Snorkelling. Basically, George was in the water in his snorkelling gear and he held onto a line that was tied to the dinghy. We drove slowly while George looked for conch. If he saw one, he would drop the line and dive for it but he had no luck. When that didn't work out, we thought we'd just find a nice coral head that we could all snorkel. Unfortunately, that didn't work out either so we headed back to the boat. We wanted to snorkel the sunken drug runners' plane on the southwest side of the island but it was too rough. We had a short swim and Heather tested the new rope ladder that she had made for getting back into the dinghy. It worked well and would be much less strain on the seat backs that she had been holding onto while climbing back into the dinghy. Of course, Cam can just boost himself out of the water and over the side!
The next day was quiet while Martha and George packed and got ready to go home. Things were a little swelly and all but George had woken in the night with the swells. We moved the boat so that we were as close as possible to MacDuff’s Restaurant where we would drop Martha and George to go to the airport. We had a big meal of steak and potatoes as a nice farewell lunch. When Cam took George to shore with the bags, it was pretty rough so there was no pulling the dinghy onto the beach. He hurried back for Martha and Heather and then we had a quick goodbye on shore. It was hard saying goodbye as their visit seemed too short and we were having so much fun!
Highbourne Cay
Once we got back to Sea Clef, we worked quickly to get her ready to go. After 2 PM is late to haul anchor to go to a new location but we were only going 16 NM and we were hoping for a calmer anchorage at Highbourne Cay. The sea was beamy with 3.5 foot waves so it was not that comfortable. We chose to anchor at Highborne Cay North as we thought it would have good protection from the southwest winds. When we arrived, Will ‘n Joy and Red Rover were there so we invited them both for docktails. Joy even brought Canadian maple cookies to celebrate Canadians getting together. They were discussing their plans to go to Nassau the next day but we had planned to wait.
During dinner we noticed once again that the water was getting really swelly. We decided to rig up a swell bridal which helped a little. Eventually, it calmed over night but the winds changed direction around 2 AM. We were both woken when the boat started moving differently and when we got up to check the anchor, we found that the swell bridal was now under our boat. We put on some warmer clothes and grabbed our flashlights to assess the situation. We had to figure out which line to remove first so that we could turn the boat into the wind without fouling the line on our props. Then we attached a regular bridal in pitch darkness! Success, and by some miracle, we both got back to sleep! By morning the swell was back in full force. Ugh! Watching our friends' boat in the swell behind us almost made us ill. We started to rethink our plans to stay where we were. The anchorage should have been protected from the winds, but the swell was wrapping around the point and it didn't look like there was anywhere in the anchorage that wasn't affected. Maybe it was time for a change of plans. Come back soon for the sea quell!
Click on the photos below to view the images in slideshow mode. Coming up next, we set out to find Atlantis.
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