At 14:00 on Sunday and we were a dozen miles from land in any direction and crossing the ocean between Long Island and Cat Island. The water was about 6,000 feet deep and a dark rich indigo. That’s really deep. What’s most amazing is that the bottom drops off from about 50′ to thousands in just 1/4 mile. It’s a cliff, for sure. We were fishing using a mesh cast net and caught what was probably a Mahi-Mahi, great eating, but lost it. Perhaps the most impressive is that bringing in a fish that weighs perhaps a dozen pounds while racing along at 7kts is a challenge. In order to bring the fish in I rounded up the boat into the wind to slow the but that made us really bounce around, which Brenda didn’t appreciate. I guess that’s enough fishing for one day.
The wind today is about perfect with the apparent wind in the 10-15kt range directly on the beam. We are sailing today with Ariel, an Aerodyne 47, a boat that is much larger than we are. However, Pandora held her own and most of the time we kept up. We did loose over a mile on her when we rounded up to try and boat the fish. However, after seeing how Brenda, who had been doing fine up until the “fish episode”, began to feel poorly while I tried to reel in the fish, I decided that having fish for dinner tonight wasn’t as important as keeping Brenda from becoming ill.
We had a great week at Thompson Bay Long Island and enjoyed seeing old friends and making new ones. As luck would have it, a group of some 25 to 30 boats decided to have a rally from George Town to Thompson Bay, something that I am told happens each winter. As part of the festivities there were parties on the beach and dinners at the local eatery, the Long Island Breeze. We participated in a number of the activities and enjoyed ourselves a great deal. This rally was an opportunity for the folks that hang out in Georgetown for months at a time to get out of town for a few days. The cocktail party on the beach was great fun. 
That’s only a part of the dink “fleet” at the beach. That’s a lot of dinks. If you are wondering, ours is the grey one with the 15hp outboard. Yeah, really unique.
After two months in the Bahamas we decided that it was high time to begin a leisurely run north beginning with Cat Island. As Miles and Laureen, aboard Ariel, had done this run before, we decided that we would “buddy boat” with them for a while. We don’t know how much time we will spend on Cat as we also would like to take in some of the islands in the Exumas chain that we missed on our run down to George Town to meet up with the boys.
Yesterday we took a hike out to one of the ocean beaches where we hoped to find some nice shells. Yes, we have tons now but we hoped to find some varieties that we had not seen yet. We also hoped to find some “sea beans”, small brown nuts that are about 1-3” inches around. These floating beans come all the way from South America, I am told, and wash up on the ocean facing beaches of the Bahamas. To date we have only found one but were rewarded by finding two yesterday. Good thing that we found the beans as the beach didn’t have many shells. It’s funny how some beaches have loads of shells and others don’t.
Here’s a sample of some that we found on Rum Cay last week. You never know which beach will be chock full of discoveries. Yes, you guessed it, Brenda loves little shells. 
Unfortunately, the beach was littered with plastic trash, everything from soda bottles to discarded fishing floats and nets. Just about anything that will float and is not bio-degrade seemed to have ended up on the beach. While most of the trash was high and dry, a remarkable amount of garbage was sloshing around in the waves off of the beach including a large tangle of lines and floats, clearly a discarded or lost fishing net. It’s unfortunate to see a beautiful beach defiled by massive amounts of trash. Garbage disposal on the islands is a problem and I can’t imagine what can be done to solve this. Perhaps piling up the debris and setting fire to it is about the only option.
In spite of the trash, the beach was quite scenic with craggy outcroppings off shore looking dramatic in the sunlight against the deep blue waters.
We sat on a rock at the end of the beach and had a picnic lunch.
A friend off of another boat taught Brenda how to weave baskets from palm fronds so I was hot on the trail to harvest some materials for her to work her magic on. Happily, we were successful and harvested a number of compact fronds. You only pick the ones that look like a green spear and have not yet opened up to weave baskets. 
Brenda’s first basket looks great but to her discerning eye, she feels that it’s a bit rough. Me, I am really impressed with her first effort and am certain that she will be turning out magnificent pieces very soon. It’s worth noting that this shot of Brenda weaving her first basket was taken as we sailed up the western coast of Long Island today. 
Along the way to the beach we came across some “wild” goats. The mothers and kids were quite cute. 
I also spied this little lizard on a palm frond. These little guys are everywhere.
We are looking forward to seeing the sights on Cat Island and are excited about being shown the ropes by Miles and Laureen.
The trip today was over 60 miles. Let me assure you that that’s a long way to sail in a day. We did the run with only one hour of motoring in 10 hours. Not bad. Ariel beat us by half an hour.
Well, after a great day of sailing I was pretty pooped but not so tired that I couldn’t make a few rum punches. Now, that’s a perfect way to cap off a great day of sailing.
How about closing with tonight’s equally perfect sunset? Actually, that’s a similar color to a rum punch. Accidental? I don’t think so. 