The Bahamas/ Hog Cay - February 2006

Part of being aboard is practising with the first aid and safety equipment. Ali decided that Dan needed a checkup. They are a lovely couple and we got on well. Dan was ex Merchant Navy and he and his partner Ali wanting to gain experience on the cruising yacht in the hope that has experienced would later get him a skipper's job on a yacht .





With light winds a blue sky and a turquoise sea we are off to Hog Cay on the Great Bahama Bank. In no time we have the spinnaker up and are cruising along nicely at 6 kn. The Great Bahama Bank was largely unsurveyed, so it is always a constant lookout and the checking of the chart, which incidently had little information. Hog Cay is known to have a lot of iguanas. And this is going to be our first stop heading south.




Hog Cay was a small coral island with very white sand. We had anchored in between two Cay's and it was very calm and sheltered. There were about three other yachts there and it seemed every day one would go on another one would come. Early in the morning the iguanas would come down to the water's edge. We would get up early go in the dinghy and wander quietly around the beach. If you lay quietly the iguanas would come up very close to you, surprisingly friendly. Later in the morning commercial tourist boats arrived, all the way from Nassau. However, by the time they arrived a lot of iguanas had crawled back into the rocks to take advantage of the shade.

The sunsets were just gorgeous and they just came along day after day... after day....... We joked about whether we would actually get sick of them, but I don't think we ever will.