A Day Spent Exploring and Visiting Neighbors

Day 23:  Wednesday March 18, 2015

The winds last night built to a fairly strong breeze and swung around to the west so in this mooring that is unprotected from the west, sleeping was not easy.  The boat rocked significantly all night long.

We had sausage gravy on toast to start our day. We did some reading and in the later morning, we fired up the dink and headed for a different beach.  On the way, I noticed a fairly large catamaran that appeared to be having difficulty pulling their anchor so I motored up and asked if they needed help.  It turned out that they had just arrived and were setting their anchor and needed no help.  We struck up a conversation and it turns out that they are from Pittsburgh.  They were hoping to see and possibly swim with some rays.

We left and as we were passing another boat we looked down into the flat smooth water and could see a ray lying on the bottom.  I turned the dink around and went back to the catamaran and told them of our sighting and they pointed out a starfish that they had seen on the bottom under the boat.  The daughter of the folks dove down and brought the starfish up for all of us to see.

The lady of the boat, Donna, invited us aboard to see their boat that they had chartered from the Moorings company.  We took her up on her offer and enjoyed seeing how the other half live.  The spacious boat has all of the comforts of home.  They have a full size bed in the master suite and a large head with a full size shower.  In the other pontoon, are two more bed rooms and another head and shower.  They are traveling with their two kids, one of whom is a college freshman and the other is a freshman in high school.

It turns out that Ralph is a day sailor and racer.  He races Flying Scotts in Deep Creek in eastern Maryland.  The Flying Scott is a sister boat to the Highlander that we have.  It was designed by Sandy Douglas who was the designer of our boat as well as the popular Thistle.

From there we motored onto a fairly long beach and spent some time combing

Root Wall

looking for shells and things.  I was impressed by an interest wall of what turned out to be roots that formed an impenetrable barrier parallel to the beach that for 30 or 40 yards. They were roots from a row of pine trees that had blown over probably in a hurricane.  The roots could not penetrate the coral subsoil so they had formed a mat basically on the top of the ground.  Many of the trees were still alive and their branches were growing straight up forming new trees.

Back in the dink, we motored around and found a shallow passage between Crab Cay and Manjack Cay.  We tried to follow it out into the Ocean but because we were approaching low tide, it was too shallow and we had to turn back.

We had a late lunch and a bit later, I ventured over to the catamaran and offered that they could stop over later for a glass of wine and a piece of cake.  They agreed and a time of 6:30 was set for the gathering.  . I drug out the Bakepaker and made a butter pecan cake.



Erosion caves on Crab Cay

We enjoyed crackers and cheese and a cold beer that Donna brought along.  It was really great to get to know these interesting folks.  Ralph has a large heating and air conditioning business in a small town just east of Pittsburgh. And Donna is a stay-at-home mom who has a background in dietetics. Their visit truly made this day another great day in paradise!

By the Way!  The response to the “Name the Dink contest” has been spirited and exciting to us.  We have been able to make connections of the names to the personality and antics of the young lady.  We are having trouble making a decision and may have to submit the list back to our followers for a vote.  Knowing some of the characters who submitted names is causing us to have to seek legal counsel to insure that the ballot box is not stuffed.  Stay tuned!



An alive sea creature in the intertidal zone