Sea Treasures Abound

We came back to Georgetown from Long Island for groceries, laundry and another great oldies dance on the decks of Chat’n Chill.  I also had two women come over to learn more about rug hooking.  They are both from the Crisfield, MD area and said when they get home they will check in to getting supplies because they thought they would like doing it.  Mary Lou’s father actually did rug hooking so she was somewhat familiar with it.

View of Twin Beaches Anchorage

The next day we sailed north with the Mershons to visit Rat Cay.  We walked some beautiful beaches and hiked to the top of Boysie Cay for a great view.  Afterwards we motored to Williams Cay to an anchorage called Twin Beaches.  It was gorgeous.  It should be called Triplet Beaches because we could see three wonderful white beaches from Blue Heaven.

Mangroves into Salt Pond

Exploring was on the agenda for the following day.  Al and I took the dinghy to Norman Pond’s Cay looking for sea treasures.  We found the entrance to the salt pond and so Al rowed us in.  I felt like Katherine Hepburn in the African Queen with mangroves on either side of us.   Once inside we found some conch shells that Al could use to make his horn to blow at sunset which is tradition around here.. 

After lunch we went ashore at Twin Beaches to walk the beaches on the sound side.  We struck pay dirt with sea glass.  Toni and I were like kids in a candy shop picking up piece after piece in the surf at the waters edge.  I found about thirty pieces and Toni about twenty!

Dave, Al and I toured the Perry Institute for Marine Science not far from Twin Beaches on Lee Stocking Cay.  They are barely operating because they ran out of money about two years ago from the endowment.  They have only two paid employees and several volunteers.  Colleges from around the country still use them in the spring and summer but it is their slow time now so only one research experiment was going on with coral.  The most interesting thing seen was their decompression chamber which I had only ever seen in pictures.  They have it but do not have two trained people available that are needed to run it, so people have to get flown to Nassau when necessary.

After the tour we were given permission to hike the Coconut Trail on the island.  Once again it gave us some gorgeous views of the sound and more beautiful beaches.  You would think we would be tired of hikes and beaches but we are not.  The turquoise waters and white beaches are superb! 

When we got back to the boat, Toni told us to come for lunch for which I was thankful because I was tired.  We pulled up to their boat and the best smell was coming out of Toni’s pizzeria.  She stayed back to bake and one of the things she made was homemade pizza which was delicious.  After a short rest we went back to “sea glass” beach and found some more.  We had not wiped it out completely the day before!

We had a gentle sail to Leaf Cay to go snorkeling and to find lobsters.  We did snorkeling but Al and Dave had no luck finding lobsters.  Al said between not having a prescription face mask and his asthma he does not think spearing lobster is his “bag.”  We saw another small elk horn reef with a variety of fish and a beautiful purple fan nearby.  Later we went ashore to walk the beach and ran into another dinghy of people who were anchored behind us.  They had caught a King Mackerel that morning and asked if we wanted any.  We said “Sure!” since Al hasn’t caught any fish yet either.  They gave us a huge piece and then our other boat neighbor who is a single hander came by about half hour later to give us one large and one small lobster. 

We hit pay dirt!  Al said now the pressure is off for getting lobster.  I said, “I don’t think so!”  This was the week for all sorts of sea treasures; ones we got and ones given to us.

We decided to sail to Rutter Cut Cay upon Dave and Toni’s suggestion.  The wind had been predicted to be rather light out of the south, southeast but it blew 17 knots and was rather roly-poly out there.  I was glad it was only eight miles because it wasn’t the most comfortable sail.  We anchored off this beautiful beach and a cave.  Unfortunately, the island is private so exploring that beach was out of the question.  We took the dinghies south to Darby Island and walked the beach and saw some interesting starfish.

We also saw Faith Hill and Tim McGraw’s Paradise Island that they built and still in the progress of building.  They had a beautiful modern main house and at least three guest houses.  The pier was being built presently.  After “oohing” and  “aahing”  we motored up to Musha Cay to walk the waters at low tide for sand dollars, sea biscuits and helmet conch.   We found the first two but not much luck with the helmet conch.  Dave found one but it was not a very attractive one so we put it back.  The one he found here another year was just gorgeous.