Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Spearfishing, Island Walking, Snorkeling Lessons, Sundowner on SeaLight


Allen’s Cay – 2 miles in dinghy, 500 metres snorkelled, 2 conch and 3 squirrel fish caught

I was up early writing for an hour or so when Ana awoke and joined me on a morning snorkeling trip.  There are few things she enjoys more than snorkeling so the two of us left the sleeping teenagers and dinghy’d to one of the nearby islands in Allen’s Cay. What we found was breathtaking - scenes from a Pixar movie with many varieties of coral, colourful fishes, incredible clarity, lurking barracudas, a strong current between islands that was fun to ride, and decently warm water. The only difference, I suppose, was the fish couldn’t talk. I had my first chance to try out my fishing spear and managed to get three squirrel fish and also picked up two conch.

Back at the boat I cleaned the fish and the conch (getting better at it) and tossed all the guts into the water, watching them float all the way to the bottom, then packed the meat away in the refrigerator. After a hot dog and coleslaw lunch, I took the girls out snorkeling while Ana stayed at the boat to work on some Newport stuff.


Young Anna had never snorkelled before, so we went first to a nearby sandbank where you could easily stand and I coached her on using the mask, snorkel, and fins. She couldn’t get the hang of the fins as they kept filling with sand and were uncomfortable but she was able to float and use the mask, but again, it wasn’t coming easy. We rode the dinghy back to the best spot Ana and I had found and Stella and I slid into the water while Anna decided to just watch for a while, and look into the water from the boat with a mask. I was really hoping she would be able to get into the water, but I realized this was all very new for her, and we were trying not to push her into something she wasn’t comfortable with. I think she will get the hang of it in time.

Stella loved the snorkelling and I looked hard for any sign of lobster but could not find any. We cruised back to SeaLight, picked up Ana, and returned to the iguana island to have a walk. We first visited an abandoned ruin of a house, then walked a stone’s throw across the island to the other side which had a beautiful and perfectly flat beach, exposed by the low tide. Ana found a colony of large snails, though even Google couldn’t help us determine if they were safe to eat, so we left them in peace. Stella captured a hermit crab, and if there’s one thing we’ve learned about beaches over the years, there’s never just one. Our sharp-eyed daughter found three more then we drew a hermit crab bullseye racing ring in the sand, chose our racers, then let them loose! The only one that budged was Anna’s, who dragged its shell directly to the finish line, dusting its lazy and untrained competitors, and taking the win. Beginner’s luck, I say.


We toured around the islands in the dinghy for a while longer, then returned to the boat, and it wasn’t long before Stella noticed a dark shadow approaching. Was it a stingray or a shark? I jumped in the water with a mask and was thrilled to see a big Caribbean reef shark prowling the waters, flanked by six small blue fish, his henchmen. These sharks look like the killer sharks you see in the movies – beady, black, soulless eyes, large and menacing dorsal fin, slick grey skin, and perfectly proportioned as it slid effortlessly through the water. It is difficult to judge sizes underwater but I guessed it was about seven to eight feet long. Stella, despite having a lifelong fear of sharks, also jumped in the water to take a look and she was thrilled. Now I think I may have said we didn’t want to make Anna do anything she did not want to do, but we made her do something she did not want to do, assuring her she was safe and this may be the only opportunity in her life to see a shark in the wild. She reluctantly stepped down the ladder, but only after the shark was headed away, and once she had her face in the water, the shark did a turn and came back, so she got a good look at him and was equally thrilled. Despite their dangerous look, I knew that reef sharks are not dangerous to humans, and these are the sharks you can dive with on the specialty shark dives from Nassau. I stayed in the water and watched the shark until it moved on. We wondered later if the fish guts I had tossed in the water earlier had attracted it. Soon afterwords a large stingray also cruised by, making this hottest place in the anchorage for animal sightings.


After the excitement had passed we got busy doing boat things. Ana and the girls started making quesadillas, I was horsing around in the cockpit, and obviously moving too fast as I slipped as I was walking to the swim platform, fell over, and dropped into the water. I had a similar slip a couple of days ago in Nassau so really do need to slow down the pace of my life.

Around 5:30 our sundowner guests arrived – Mary, Malekei, and Nico. We had wanted to also asked Richard and Tammy, but we were up against the capacity of the cockpit, so hopefully next time. Sundowners are supposed to last an hour or so, but this one went to 11pm as nobody had any reason to leave and we were having such great conversations. I was happy the two teenagers stayed with us the entire time and were fully engaged in the conversation, mostly thanks to Nico who directed many questions their way. We had an excellent evening.

We learned Mary would be turning 30 in two days so said goodbye to them at the end of the night, hoping for a birthday meetup at Shroud Cay.

No comments:

Post a Comment