April 17 Brigatine Cay

We are completely alone at Brigantine Cay.  It is hardly mentioned in the guidebooks, which puts this place off the path followed by most cruisers.  We find the solitude perfect for our cruising style. 

The beautiful birds we've heard chirping all around us are White Tailed Tropic birds.  They look something like a tern with a long lacy tail.  I'm embarrassed to admit how long I laid on the cockpit roof, sweating in the sun, trying to get a photo. Let's just say I have a lot of photos of a beautiful clear blue sky, and here's a stock image I found on Google.  

Props to Jim Bearden & other birders who come home from their trips with gorgeous clear pictures of their sightings!

We took the dinghy out to explore the shore of Brigantine Cay.  Lined with the fiercely jagged rocks we've seen before, but there were also several small coves to explore that led close to the interior lake full of sand flats & mangroves.  We could get close, but had trouble finding a way in to the lake area.  Rounding the far end of the island we found it: a small beach and cut where the incoming tide feeds the lake. 

We walked across the dry sand flats that were covered by new mangrove shoots and millions of tiny snails. 

Once we got to where the lake water began, we started to notice 1"-2" diameter holes in the sand. When Lois went to check them out, the sand beneath her feet gave way and suddenly she was ankle deep in soft sand.  A bit freaked out, she tried to retreat to firmer ground but kept repeatedly stepping near more of the holes surrounded by soft sand and sinking again.

Wasn't that an episode on Twilight Zone?

We dinghyed across the cut to the next island & stopped at a small beach to peer over the dunes at the mangroves and look around the rocky shore. The islands grow as corals and shells calcify and build up more land mass.  Here we could see an example of a conch shell  becoming one with the land.

Also along the shore were many evidence of man- bits of plastic, styrofoam, fishing nets...and this wine bottle that had a small ecosystem contained inside.  There was a base layer of sand, with small plants & animals living inside.  We gently put it back to let them continue to thrive.

Back at the boat there was time for some relaxing on the bow

and a snorkel before fixing dinner.  Following some tracks in the sand under our boat led to this large crab living in an old conch shell.

After dinner we were visited by our friend the big nurse shark. (I wasn't quick enough to get a photo, he was long gone.)

As the sun was setting we started to discuss a plan for beginning to move north.  

Good winds for making hops north are forecast.  Hard to think about leaving the Southern Exumas, but maybe it is time to turn around.