This morning after breakfast, we set out in our dinghy with the video camera, binoculars and bottled water for the nature tour. We somehow missed the entrance of the creek, so we went further along and entered in a shallow creek while we turned off the motor of the dinghy and floated along with the current to hear and see better. The water was very still and shallow, so we just leaned over the sides of our dinghy and it was as if we were looking down into an aquarium!!
We didn’t know what to expect, but I never thought there would be coral gardens, sea anemones, sea slugs, and lots of fish here. You didn’t need to get in the water to snorkel, in fact, doing that would have disturbed the environment – fish, etc. This was perfect. The sides of the creek were mangroves and there was just enough current in the water to keep us moving slowly along without disturbing the water so that we could see through it easily.
At one point we saw a turtle swimming up to us while we were almost stopped. I stood up in the dinghy and started filming the turtle. It came even closer to us. Sure enough it was a fairly small – 2 feet in diameter – hawksbill turtle, which is endangered. Fantastic. I’m hoping the film of it turned out as we haven’t finished the disk yet, so we haven’t seen the film of the turtle or of all of the other underwater creatures we saw that day.
After we got back to the boat, we had lunch and We sailed to Sandy Cay this morning from Snake Cay. We had to motor a little through narrow channel. Sandy Cay was our anchorage – wide open behind a small island with no other boats nearby. This is because there are ocean swells that move you all night. I moved to the aft cabin because Doug said it was very rolly in our usual bedroom under the bow of the boat. We watched a lovely sunset with our rum drinks and relaxed.
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