April 12, 2013 Water Cay-Flamingo Cay

The drawback to these small, beautiful, deserted islands (come on, you knew there had to be one!) is SURGE.  That means that the ocean swells wrap around the islands, and even though you're anchored in a spot protected from the wind, your boat will be rocking and rolling.  All.night.long.  So in the morning, we were happy to get off the boat and go ashore to explore a bit.  We took our dinghy over to a small sandy area near the center of the island so we could walk over to see the Atlantic side.  

The sand gives way to rocks and tidal pools, with ocean waves crashing onto jagged coral rock on the other side. The scenery is rugged and dramatic, and we walk carefully, as any missed step could result in a fall, a scrape, a sprain, a break, or worse.

The island is "split" at this point at high tide, with waves sluicing through the divide.  When we first arrived at the beach, we could've walked from one side to the other across the sandy bottom, but a few moments later, it's impassable.  Good thing we didn't go across, since we would've been separated from our dinghy!

These small succulents were nestled in a small hole in the rock.

 

The nearly constant easterly winds shape the shrubbery into miniature bonsai, growing out of the rock.

 A lizard keeps us company.

After exploring this rocky area, we dinghy northeast around a point to the long expanse of beach pictured below.  Gorgeous is the only word for it!  The sand is peachy-pink and talcum powder soft.  We collect lots of shells and small smooth black rocks, many so smooth they look like they're polished.

Fossilized conch shells imbedded in the beach rocks

After our morning of exploration, it's time to get underway.  Mike on Kanaloa came by in his dinghy as we were getting ready to pull up anchor.  He is going no further in Jumentos, as he has to be back in Georgetown.  We left, putting up the mainsail for the second time while at anchor.  Makes a lot of sense to do this, as the boat is already basically into the wind.  Had a good sail, about 10 miles to Flamingo Cay, fairly hard on the wind.  Just as we were passing Flamingo Cut, another Leopard cat came in through the Cut.  We decided to make a quick move to the anchorage to get first dibs.  We went to the north most anchorage of the western part of the island and Sarah insisted we anchor in the middle to take up the whole cove.  The other boat first went into the north bay of Flamingo Cay.  A while later, he came back out, probably too much surge, and continued past us to the next little bay to the south of us.  We could only see his mast at anchor.  Although the surge was a bit rough here, we decided to spend two nights.  We explored the beach and discovered three remoras, two to three feet long each, had taken up residence under Mirador.  Neither of us wanted to dive in off of the boat, as we had been doing, to cool off.  After feeding the little rascals with chicken scraps, Sarah couldn't understand why they kept hanging around.  Duh.  Now how to get rid of them.  We hope they'll disappear when we leave for our next island.  No other boats seen after the  tip of the Leopard's mast disappeared the next morning.