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Lynde and I had an adventurous time, mostly because I was still learning a lot about Malakii. We left Moho Cay Marina late in the day, and anchored off Peter's Bluff. The sun was going down, but the local dolphins I had seen several times before showed up. Lynde was overboard in a second. After a long time the dolphins finally came close enough for her to see them and swim with them a bit.
Malakii's interior was improved immensely by a quilt Lynde made for me.
We went down to Bluefield Range, then out to Rendezvous Cay to snorkel. From there we went to Colson Cay, where we bought some great lobster from a local fisherman. We spent the next morning rowing around in the dinghy exploring the lagoon inside the southern cay. We found a Portugese Man-O-War hung up on some mangrove roots. When I took these pictures, it got all upset when the flash went off. I'm glad I wasn't in the water...
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Rendezvous Cay | | |
From there we went down to Garbutt Cay. We rowed the dinghy around the cays, and checked out a sea kayaking camp on one. I am amazed that they take first time sea kayakers out here. It's a long ways between these cays, and if the wind is bad it would not be a good place to tip over.
From Garbutt we went to Tobacco Cay. It was Valentine's day, and the last day of lobster season, and afternoon already, but we managed to convince the dive operator to take us out for a dive. It was Lynde's first warm water dive and her first salt water dive. We saw about a dozen lobsters, some of them pretty good sized.
The next day we headed down to Southwater Cay. This time it was Lynde's birthday. For a birthday present she got a free hot, fresh water shower. That may not sound like much, but at this point I wasn't using the solar showers so there wasn't a hot shower on the boat. We tucked into a nice protected lagoon at the Twin Cays for the night...
Towards morning the breeze died, and the sandflies attacked in earnest. We got out of there in a hurry, without eating breakfast. It took three days of sailing with the hatches open to get all the sandflies out of the boat.
We headed up to Bluefield Range for the night, but before we got there the wind kicked up quite a bit. We came screaming in as it was getting dark. I was happy to have been there before, as it is a somewhat tricky entrance. We tucked in behind an island and a small reef. After making sure the primary anchor was well set, I shackled Big Bertha onto the secondary anchor chain and rowed out in the dinghy and set it.
The next day the wind was really blowing, but I wanted to get to San Pedro on Ambergris Cay in time to meet an old college friend, Steve Amira, and his family. So we headed out and had a day of exciting sailing. It was my first chance to see how Malakii performed in more serious wind. We made it up to the Drowned Cays after a day of salt spray and short sails, with a lot of water over the bow.
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The next day we sailed up to Cay Caulker, and the following morning up to San Pedro. We spent two days there. We went snorkling with the Amrias, and enjoyed bicycling around town. Then Lynde flew to Corozal, where she caught the bus to Chetumal, then on to Cancun, and out to Isla Mujeres for her three weeks of work. Well, sort of work. She got a fair amount of diving and snorkling in while she was there.