Saturday, February 20, 2010 Allen's Cay - 24 44.431 076 53.020

What a beautiful day. The sun was lighting up the aqua greens and blues of the water and you could see the white sands on the bottom of the anchorage with the juvenile conch moving along at a slow and steady pace.

We had some fruit (grapes, oranges and bananas) for breakfast and hung out watching the powerboat tour pull up to Leaf Cay to feed the iguanas and take pictures of us. I have recently figured out that we are doing what they’d like to do. Therefore they take pictures of us. We are part of the scenery of their vacation. Look at these pictures honey! Iguanas and pretty sailboats.

Wayne got the dinghy down and fixed our fuel valve. Then we dinghied over to Allen’s Cay. On the way there – we must have hit a rock because the lid to the motor came up along with the built in gas tank in the engine. One of the bolts broke loose and we had gas leaking into the engine and into the boat. What a mess. We hooked it all back together and left it to evaporate while we looked for conch and took the trail up to see the Cairns. What a spectacular view looking out west over the Great Bahamas Bank (the way we came to get here from Nassau). You could see for miles. Nothing but dark aqua water, wispy clouds, and a few sails on the horizon heading to an island somewhere down the chain. Turning around and looking east we could see Azaya, Blue Pearl, and Passport in our anchorage. I took some pictures of the boats from the top of Allen’s Cay and could see Pam, Glen, Charlotte and Mike (Blue Pearl and guests) on the beach at Leaf Cay. Charlotte & Mike are the people that brought our macerator pump over with them.

I had packed some grapes for the iguanas in my backpack so we headed over to Leaf Cay and met up with Azaya on the way over there (Axel got their dinghy fixed too). We all chatted and fed the iguanas. I got some great shots of Charlotte feeding the grapes to the iguanas. She was so funny. She was training them to roll over, and telling them to stay, play dead, sit, etc… It was great. She had the iguanas dancing around and was great fun. After that Blue Pearl headed back to get ready for their trip to Normans and we (and Azaya) went over to SW Allens (Lone Palm Island) to look for conch and wade. We met some young people there (Canadian Bahamians) and their guests and took pictures of them then continued our search of the sands and rock for conch. Axel found a couple that were keepable but we didn’t really have any luck this time.

While we were conching I spotted thick, black smoke on the horizon. We turned on our radios and found out a supply freighter heading from Nassau to Haiti was burning on the horizon. Boats were racing to the area to give assistance and they were sending a plane and helicopter. The boats name was CJ – Mary said it was one of the freighters we saw at Potters Cay. There were Bahamians and Haitians on board that had all jumped overboard safely and were picked up by the boaters that went racing over to them and were going to be taken to Eleuthera. I’m not sure what all they were carrying but the smoke was incredible. A dense black color that rose from the water and billowed outward and upward. It was good to hear that all aboard were rescued with no fatalities!

On the way back to the boat I wanted to stop by and meet the people on Passport. We’re anchored next to them and when we were initially anchoring I was worried we were to close to them. It’s a pretty Tayana. So we stopped by to say hi and introduce ourselves to IB and Rebecca then continued back to the boat. I’d just finished taking off my wet, salty clothes when I remembered that I was going to go over to Blue Pearl and check out his chart plotter and help him figure it out so figured I’d better head over there when IB came by to invite us for conch salad. He came by Azaya’s to invite them too and supervise the first killing and cleaning of their conch. Axel had the conch out in no time & of course had to slurp down the clear tube – the aphrodisiac. It’s a right of passage & IB did the same. After the conch was de-shelled and cleaned, Mary bruised it and turned it into cracked conch while Axel and I worked on his chart plotter. A couple from Cavu came dinghying by and I heard Kolibrie. That made me swing my head around and I called to them – Kolibrie? They came by and said yes we saw Kolibrie over there and wanted to go visit them. We don’t know them but know the boat. I told them I was Kolibrie and they said the german hummingbird? Yes. Sprechken see duch? Nine. They wanted to have sundowners on the beach but I bowed out and they went over to meet Wayne. I think they were German looking for another German. They were funny and quite happy go lucky. Before I knew it, it was time for me to dinghy back to our boat and grab some fruit, cheese and crackers before heading over to Passport. Axel has a route charted for Norman’s Island & his chart plotter is a nice Garmin. The software looks very good!

We spent a nice evening on Passport chatting. Rebecca made a delightful conch salad and we found out that we were looking for conch in the wrong place this time. The cut where they went was a “choose which conch you want” kind of place and I guess they have about 20 that they’re keeping in a net for eating. Mary’s cracked conch was wonderful once again. I think her recipe is terrific (powdered egg, powdered milk and Ritz crackers) and I brought a fruit, cheese and cracker tray. We watched another pretty sunset from Passport and didn’t return to our boat until it was way dark.

It was overall a delightful day!