February 14th, 2023
What better way to spend valentine’s day than to be running a boat in the middle of nowhere? I would love to say we have big plans for this romantic occasion, but really after so many years of marriage, I am just trying to keep the boat upright, off the rocks and say a kind word or two. 🙂
Yesterday we made our way from Fortune Island to Castle Island. It was a short run and with the help of some current we ran at close to 8 knots much of the way. It was truly pleasant after the last few days of wind and waves.
Anchoring at the bottom of Castle Island was easy enough. It is a small opening between two reefs and has a beautiful long beach in front. The waters from the past couple of days continue to roil the seas and so the flopper stopper went out very quickly and we reduced the roll quite a bit, making it a decent anchorage for the night.
Due to how little time we expected to stay, we opted not to launch the dinghy, but did throw in the kayak so we could walk on the beach. In my mind, the reason for the beach was to walk to the light house. Jinhee’s objective was to walk on the beach. The lighthouse looks good from a distance too. 🙂
We did watch a shark playing (ahem, hunting) in the surf. It was kind of shocking and just a couple feet away from us. To be fair though it was just a little thing, about two feet long, so not a big risk to us, but we did prefer the sand over the surf at that point.
With the weather from the past few days on my mind, I was up at 4 am again and thinking about moving while the winds were light. By 5:15 am, the flopper stopper was onboard and the anchor was up and I made my way slowly back through the reef. From there it was easy and a straight line to Mayaguana. We didn’t see a wave over two feet, wind over 20 knots and ran without the stabilizers most of the way. It was a good day on the water. Perhaps mother nature was saying ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’ to us.
We were visited by some brown boobies again today, but they didn’t stay to hunt, they just flew by. I had a whole lot of brown booby jokes lined up for the pictures, but I guess I will wait until the boobies show some interest in the boat again.
At just about 4:30 we finished running the gauntlet of reefs into Abrahams Bay and dropped anchor. Its a very small place. We expect to spend a few days here while the next bit of weather passes over us, before departing for Turks and Caicos.
Here is the sunset for Valentine’s Day from Abrahams Bay, Mayaguana.
