We headed North up Long Island, sailing in 6 foot depths with a comfortable 14-17 knots of breeze, just perfect!
Two and a half hours later, we dropped sails and weaved through the reefs off Hog Cay to an idyllic anchorage that we had to ourselves for 3 days.
We could see that there was a large Osprey that had built a nest on the peak of one of the houses onshore. It looked like a bald eagle it was so big! I don’t recall bald eagles wintering in the Bahamas though…
Unfortunately, it was a private island, so we didn’t get to walk down the beach. However, the snorkeling was pretty terrific at two of the three reefs near the boat. There were some gigantic angel fish, trigger fish, multicolored parrot fish, a wide range of tropical “tank” fish, schools of smaller snapper, and a massive barracuda that floated mid depth like a ghost. I kept my eye out for sharks as well, but we only saw a little nurse shark on our way across the bay in the dinghy.
Calabash Bay was just a 45-minute motorsail the next bay up, and we anchored near some old friends we’d last seen in Dominica a year ago.
One feature in the bay was a lagoon that meandered up through the mangroves. We got in the dinghy to check it out on another darn windy day. We had fun figuring out where the channel was and which side of the local markers to stay on once we could pick them out in the chop.
By four pm, squalls and thunderstorms rolled in and kept up until after 10 pm. We would be heading off to Cat Island the following morning.