Feb 21-24, 2023 Black Point

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We came here to meet up with friends Paul & Christine on Grit, a cat designed & built by Paul. A unique feature of their 50+ft cat is that it can be beached, and they did so for some minor maintenance chores.  That caused quite a stir in the harbor!  Locals  and cruisers alike were slowly cruising by for a closer look at what they assumed was an accidental beaching

We had sundowners with them & happily talked late into the evening.

Another night we walked over to a restaurant and had sunset cheeseburgers.

After two days at the village surrounded by other boats we were ready to change our scenery.  At dawn we pulled anchor to go look for a nice quiet beach. South of Black Point is a long chain of beautiful places in the lee of the prevailing wind.  We chose Jack’s Beach for our anchor drop, just a few miles south of Black Point.  Another lovely beach, this one is in a shallow cove with a small cave, and benches & rope chair swings under a casarina tree. We followed a trail to the far side of the island to find a small "bathtub" cove ( a small beach completely surrounded by high coral walls with a small inlet that allows waves to crash through dramatically.)

At this point I must very regretfully report that our underwater camera- the very one that takes most of the fun shots you've seen in the blog for years- has decided to quit working. It's seen a lot of beaches & a lot of fishy shots, so it's kinda sad. 

So I couldn't bring you photos of the interesting geology of that bathtub cove- the eroded cliff that exposed thousands of years of layered sand with fingers of coral reaching down to root the surface rock in place. Or a photo of the beach of the bath tub cove, that I would have liked so much for you to see, not because it was beautiful, but because piled up in that small nook was so much plastic garbage carried in by the waves & storms that there was no place to walk.  There is some plastic debris on all the beaches in the Bahamas, but this was like a landfill. I came away more determined to reduce my plastic consumption.

Back on the side of the island where the boat was anchored, I continued my quest to find interesting shells. (I thought it was sadly ironic that I have my 'keepers' stored in a ziplock bag!) 

We had anchored near (but not too near!) a charted rock, which Brent snorkeled, accompanied by his new friend the 3 ft barracuda who has been living under our hull. They look fierce, but we've always found them to be friendly & curious creatures. They swim along next to you at a respectful distance, just happy to look at wharever you're looking at. We both snorkelled the rock ledges at the edge of the island. Brent found a very nice Amber Pen shell, about 7' long.

After 2 nights we decided go move again, leaving one quiet beach for another 5 miles to the south, Issac's Bay. This one a mile long stretch of sand & rock ledges all to ourselves.  We'll take a couple days to let Lois's sore back rest up from several nights of anchorages that had too much swell to get a really good night's sleep.


Comments

Lynn and Ed said…
Sounds like you are finding some interesting places. Hope you can find a relaxing calm anchorage for your back Lois.
February 27, 2023 at 11:37 AM
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