Shroud Cay to Staniel Cay – 31 nautical miles sailed, 7 miles in dinghy
When I arrived by dinghy at sailing vessel Waddington at 7:30 am, Ben was in the cockpit, shirtless with his wavy blonde hair sticking up in strange ways and Kate was staggering slightly, wiping sleep nuggets from her eyes.
“Good morning Waddington!” I announced. It was great to see them again.
I passed over the generator we had picked up for them in Florida then hopped aboard for a visit and we caught up on each others’ news. Somehow the previous afternoon when I was out for my exploratory dinghy ride, I had whizzed by them and not noticed their boat, wasting an opportunity for afternoon rum drinking.
Ben and Kate got ready and moved their boat closer to ours then we all left in the dinghies to explore the mangrove streams, timing it perfectly as it was nearing high tide which would give us a nice little push up the channels into the interior of the island. A series of tidal channels run into and right through Shroud Cay and we travelled up one of them all the way to a beach on the other side of the island, where we had to hand tow the dinghies in for the last bit that became too shallow to navigate. The channel was quite narrow, maybe four feet deep, invisible clear, bordered by thick mangroves with their finger-like roots grasping into the bottom, and home to many turtles – we spotted three of them.
After exploring the beach we backtracked and found another channel which led to the Washing Machine – a narrow channel with a heavy current running out to the ocean, which you can ride through then get popped out the other side and pulled to safety by eddy currents, or by just walking through the shallow water to the shore. Ben, Kate, and I gave it a try, and we enjoyed the solitude as we were the only people there…but soon another dinghy arrived, a very fancy one, being driven by what were surely superyacht staff, and the four passengers were inexplicably wearing bright yellow Helly Hansen survival suits, like they had just arrived from a Arctic expedition. They had a look then immediately turned and left. But minutes afterward, a different dinghy arrived, then another, then another, and soon the dinks were lined up on the beach and people were flinging themselves into the washing machine. It was fun.
We made a plan to rendezvous with Ben and Kate tomorrow and made our way back to the boat then pulled anchor and set sail for Staniel Cay, which is the sailing hub for the central Exumas. It was a lovely 31 mile run with the headsail catching full wind, sun bright and high in the sky after the thick layer of morning clouds had burned off, and some wonderful moments making custom birthday cards for our friend Mary’s 30th birthday, then sitting on the top deck watching the patterns of sea grass and coral on the bottom as we whizzed through less then twelve feet of water much of the way.
Because we arrived at low tide, we couldn’t get through the shallow waters leading to the area near Staniel Cay Yacht Club, where Malekai and Mary on White Seal were anchored, so instead we dropped the hook around the corner near Pig Beach, home to the famous swimming pigs of the Exumas. I went for an ocean bath, then grabbed the goggles to have a look around. What did I see but a big reef shark, off our bow, swimming rapidly across the bottom, kicking up clouds of silt in his path, hurrying as if late for an appointment. After dinner, as I was getting ready to pick up the crew of White Seal for birthday drinks, Ana spotted a nurse shark circling our dinghy, and we all had a good look at it.
I picked up Mary, Malekei, and Malekei’s dad Michael, who had just arrived from Indiana in the afternoon and brought them back to SeaLight for a birthday party. Ana had put together a charcuterie board, I poured some rum and colas, and we sat and chatted in the cockpit as the birthday playlist Stella and Anna had crafted played in the background. We gave Mary her four birthday cards and a present – a sailing novel wrapped in pages torn from an unused section of the ICW Cruising Guide. She seemed to love it all.
After a 2am start to his day, Michael was losing steam so I ran the White Seal crew back to their boat beneath a bright full moon, flanked by dozens of shimmering anchor lights in the bay, aligned like constellations from a distant galaxy.
Living the dream Kris!
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