Three Days at Powell Cay

Wayne is holding one of the many starfish we saw near the beach at Powell Cay. Starfish move so slow it is hard to tell when they are alive. This starfish was alive and happy to be put back in the water.

Wayne is wearing his Tilly Hat. We both got big brimmed hats to wear while walking the beach.

Tuesday at Manjack we went over to Coconut Tree Bay and followed a very nice path over to the Atlantic Ocean side of Manjack Cay. We enjoyed exploring the beach. Among the treasures we found were two hamburger beans and a glass ball. We think the glass ball is a fishing float, the valuable floats are Portuguese. We will have to do some research to find out more about the one we found. After lunch we put on our short wet suits and snorkeled around the boat and then out to the anchor. The water was chilly but OK in the wet suit. It felt great to swim.

Wednesday we moved Born to Cruise over to Powell Cay, about 10 miles. We had never been to Powell Cay but had read that it was a great place to explore. We found a short path to get over to the Atlantic Ocean side and had a nice walk on the beach. We found a hamburger bean and also a purse bean. Purse beans are more rare, so it is exciting when you find them. We also found a nice Partridge Tun shell about 4" long, this is the biggest of these that we had ever found. This beach was also covered with Sea Biscuits, which are fat sand dollars. The sea biscuits were everywhere along with sea urchin shells and white clam shells that had both sides attached. Wayne also picked up a conch shell which he is going to make a conch horn out of. You blow the conch horn at sunset to end another beautiful day.

Thursday we walked the short beach on the banks side of Powell Cay. When we were headed back to the boat for lunch we stopped and talked to Bill and Bettie Sue on "Teamwork". We had seen them walking another path and wanted to know how it was. They said it needed clearing but it took you to a beautiful beach. We decided to let other people clear it before we tried it, maybe on our way north. They used to own a surf shop in Folly Beach, SC which is near Charleston. They enjoy coming to the Abacos to fish, snorkel, do underwater photography and surf when they find a big enough wave. That afternoon we went back to the Ocean beach we had walked the day before. Can you tell I love to walk beaches ?

Today we washed a load of clothes and I made yogurt. We are getting back into the boating life.

"Teamwork" had told us that the wreck near the beach was a fun place to snorkel. We dinghied over to the beach, put on our long wet suits and went snorkeling. The wreck was a steel hull sail boat. This was our first chance to try our underwater camera. Our underwater camera is a regular Olympus Digital Camera with a waterproof case. We took lots of pictures, it worked well. It is hard to see the screen on the camera, so you just point and shoot. The hard part is staying still and not floating to the surface while you are taking a picture and of course the fish do not pose well. We actually took some pretty good pictures. I will post some of those pictures on our photo page. You can get to our photos by clicking on the icon of the camera from our home page www.borntocruise.com or by going to this link http://picasaweb.google.com/svBorntoCruise

After lunch we moved Born to Cruise back to Manjack Cay so we could have internet and be in position to move to Marsh Harbor on Saturday.