Saturday February 25, 2012 Shroud Cay



Ignoring the Wind Generator - My attempt at capturing
one of the tropic birds that was flying overhead...



84 degrees and calm. Just a beautiful day out. I watched some tropic birds soaring overhead. They’d fly up, come together, circle and soar off with their beautiful long tails flaring out behind them. I just couldn’t seem to focus on them with my camera to get a decent picture of them. After trying to snap a picture of them for about an hour, I flicked on the radio at 9am. They didn’t have anything for us so we decided to stay here and at high tide (around 10am) we got into the dink and Azaya took theirs and their kayak and we went to the northern part of the island to a sandy creek that wound us through a tidal swamp forest of mangroves. We passed over a stingray, some conch, and a large grunt as we followed the current through the interior. We ended up on the south side of the island on a wonderful little beach. Where the beach and the creek met, an eddy pool was created by where the waves and current from the creek met. You could swirl around and around in it and be deposited back out on the ocean via your dinghy or by floating.

 

View from Camp Driftwood



From the beach we followed a path up to Camp Driftwood. A hermit named Ernest Scholtes lived on his sailboat just inside the creak and he had built a table and benches out of driftwood and had a little camp up here at one time. While there was no sign of his habitation now, a sign up there marked the spot and someone had left a toothbrush below. The view was spectacular from the top of the hill. It overlooked the surrounding islands, beaches and the mangrove swamps that we’d gotten there from. You could see a vast tidal lake that dries at low tide below us to one side and a view of the ocean on the other side. What a view! Climbing back down the trail, we were all pretty hot so jumped into the water to cool off a bit. There was a group of kids there from a mega yacht. Spring break is alive and well in the Bahamas!

After floating and chatting a bit on the sandbar, we headed back to the beach where Azaya had deposited their dinghy while Axel & Mary when exploring a bit down the beach. The tide was starting to go out and we wanted to be through the creek bed before the waters got too low for us to bring our dinghy back through. Back on the Bahama Sound side we shampooed and bathed. I discovered my soap doesn’t float! When I tossed Wayne the shampoo, he tossed me the soap, thinking it would land in front of me. Oops… soap gone…then I started floating in the most still and peaceful sea water I’ve ever encountered. I was floating in a world of complete peace! The only sound I could hear was my heart thumping. I felt weightless as I drifted down the beach. The air was still. The water was still. I could only imagine that that’s what it feels like in space. It was so still and lovely with no sensation of gravity or waves or air pushing at me. The sun shining on my face was really the only other sensation I could feel. When I came out of my reverie, Mary and Axel were approaching in their kayak around the point from where the creek begins on this side. I let them know I had some shampoo if they’d like to wash their hair and low and behold while I was telling them that we’d had soap, Mary spotted it in the water. We couldn’t see it sitting on the bottom but she did! Yay!



Some of the Red Mangrove that we dinghied through



A stingray that we passed over on our dinghy ride

 As we dinghied back to the boat, we passed over then next to a shark! Wow! We turned to see if we could get a picture but I guess it was camera shy. It took off and we lost it. This must be the year for sharks. But this time, this one didn’t want anything to do with me.

I made some pinwheel appetizers of pineapple cream cheese, mango salsa and tomatoes; and took some crab dip, crackers and potato salad over to Azaya to share with their conch. We had a nice evening and as the sun set, heard several boats trumpeting their conch horns. Mine? Back on our boat, laughing. Oh well. We got back to the boat and Wayne figured we needed to run the engine to charge up the batteries. The problem was – the engine wouldn’t start. We’ve had no wind since being here, nor have we run the engine. It’s dark, dark, dark, out. Time I think for bed. Tomorrow, weather depending, we’ll head for Black Point. That’s about 37 or so nautical miles from here.



Wayne, me and Axel with Mary behind the camera