March 28 – 31– Powell Cay

From Greg. On the 28th we left Manjack to go up to uninhabited Powell Cay. It was a short easy sail to the cay, which is a wide ‘V’ shape pointing northeast. There are 15 foot cliffs on the northern side with continentals flying high over them. The continentals are narrow bodied white birds with tail feathers as long as their wingspans. They hover over the cliffs restlessly reminding me of our neighborhood ‘Herd’ at some event like the L5P Halloween parade. A pair of birds is joined by another pair. One bird splits off. Three more join it. Everyone gets together briefly, then groups disburse again.

On the 29th we explored the cay. Check out the pics. I found an old conch shell that was probably trying to commit suicide by beaching itself. I’ll tell you it was a lot more difficult to extract that conch’s meat than the coconut meat I got for Duwan earlier. I have since learned the proper way to do this, but I basically ended up mutilating the shell with a hatchet. By the time I finished, the already tough conch had rigor mortis. I tried tenderizing it. Some went into an inedible conch salad. I pan seared some, which turned out to be tasting. The rest is being used for fish bait.

On Friday we left the empty Powell Cay anchorage to sail back to New Plymouth. This was a good time to practice skills. We are trying to set anchor and weigh anchor under sail (instead of using the engine). Haven’t quite nailed these yet so we only practice when no one is close by.

Since I have dropped out of the sphere of employment compensation I have been acutely aware of the value of a beer. Basically I can’t afford one without making sacrifices.

As we holed up in White Sound on Green Turtle Cay a cols front passed through leaving five gallons of rain water in the dinghy. Time to wash clothes. This would cost $8 dollars at a marina. That’s two happy hour beers at Pirate’s Cove on Great Guana Cay.

Today (the 31st) we left the northern area and sailed back through the dreaded ‘Whale’ passage. Earlier we had motored through the entire narrow passage, meticulously using the GPS to follow preset waypoints. Today we did take the precautions of running the engine in a potentially dicey spot, but we sailed through the whole passage. Actually we bypassed our intended anchorage at Great Guana and sailed on to Marsh Harbar. Savings over motoring the whole way was about $15 of diesel or three Kalik Golds at Sundowner’s on Green Turtle Cay. (OK. I had already drunk these three the night before when I used them as an excuse to let Duwan beat me in three games of darts.)