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| Cooking dinner on the fire |
Over the next few days, we Cay hopped, as most were only a
15 – 25 mile sail. We would leave in the
morning to catch the breeze before it died and would try to anchor between noon
and 2:00. We would then jump in the
skiff to check out the coral and hunt for dinner.
We had read in another blog that Cayo Guincho had many
lobster and the people had cooked their catch in a bonfire on the beach. Well, I had pictures of a beautiful white
sand beach, beautiful turquoise water with lobsters crawling all over the
place. This was not the case. As with most of the cays in this area, the
cays themselves are mostly mangroves and the water a little on the murky
side. They are still beautiful islands –
just in their own right.
I was a little
skeptical as we started our hunt.
Instead of one long coral reef there was just a few rocks and small
coral heads scattered around sea fans and grass. But, all is not as it appeared, as we looked
closer under these rocks and found 6 small lobster and one giant one! Oh yes, I forgot to mention the two big hog
fish we speared as well – more than enough food to feed the six of us. We decided that we would also have a bonfire
on the small sandy area on the island, and sent Josh and Connor in first to
start the fire to smoke out the no-see-ums that are on all the islands. Dressed in long pants and a long sleeve shirt
and armed with plenty of rum to keep the bugs away, or at least help numb the
bites, we made our way to the site of the great feast. What an awesome dinner it turned out to
be! Dena had made a huge bowl of potato
salad, I had made a cucumber salad and we had also brought gobs of butter and
garlic to melt on the fire. We put the
lobster tails in tinfoil, did the same with the fish and put them on the hot
coals. To say the lobster melt in your
mouth doesn’t do it justice!
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| Great trade! |
The next day, we sailed to Cayo Algodon Grande. The anchorage is easy to enter, we never saw
less than 10 feet of water entering into the protected lagoon that you anchor
in. We chose to anchor basically at the
mouth of the entrance to take advantage of the breeze blowing in, which kept
the bugs at bay. There were two fishing
boats also anchored in there and shortly after we arrived, they rowed over to
ask if we wanted some lobster. We said
sure, and brought out a small (mickey size) bottle of rum. They in return handed us a bucket of lobster
tails…FIVE huge lobster tails! What a
trade!
The following day, we dignied around to the north side of
the island and discovered a beautiful series of beaches, all half-moon shaped
with the white sand and water that went from turquoise blue to emerald
green that I had been hoping for. We let Niko romp on the beach for a while and
she discovered that the islands were in fact, not uninhabited. Away from the perfect beach, the mangroves
were the homes to many, many iguanas and juantas which look like muskrats! Niko rushed in after them, barking and
yipping, and luckily, not catching them.
We went back to the boat to get the rest of the gang and our supplies (i.e.
snacks, beverages and our trusty water floaties). We dignied to a different place and had a great
beach day!
We got up early the
next morning and sailed over to Cayo Cuervo.
The weather has been fairly settled, so we anchored in front of a reef
and a little farther away from land so the bugs would stay away. We jumped in the skiff and checked out the
reef on the northwest side of the island.
The water was pretty clear and the coral much prettier than the other
Cays. We didn’t spear any lobster or
fish, but we have so much in the freezer, we really weren’t looking very hard
for it!
The next morning we got another early start and sailed to
Cayo Zaza de Fuera. This is another
mangrove Cay and we really only stopped here to rest for the night before
heading to Casdila in the morning.
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| Niko is excited for beach day! |
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| The only other boats we saw were local fishing boats |
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| Beach day!! |
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| Joana and Sabbaticus at anchor |
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