Last night ranked as one of our all-time best sleeps out at anchor. The sky was clear and the stars were numerous and brilliant as there was little surrounding light and the waning moon had set. The boat lay to current, so instead of the breeze being on the nose and blocked from the cockpit by our dodger, it blew across us gently.

We were up a little after 6am to hear the weather report and have coffee. Around us, boats began waking and pulling anchor. By lunch time there were only 5 boats left in the anchorage out of 16 that stayed last night. Boat tasks in the morning included Tommy checking the status of the filters on the watermaker, putting on the anchor snubber (didn’t need it last night), and evaluating the weather forecast for traveling tomorrow.

Paula did some meal planning while she had her coffee. Since we had no connectivity to access recipes, she broke out the bible: “The Joy of Cooking” which she considers a must-have on board for recipes, food substitutions, and instructions on how to deal with unfamiliar or unprocessed foods the traveler may encounter. There are even detailed instructions on how to skin and clean a live eel!  This last will likely not be utilized on this trip.

Paula then gave Poltergeist a badly needed scrubbing with seawater. Next she sewed a secure attachment from Velcro and webbing for the small strobe on Tommy’s life-jacket, as the original holder didn’t function well.

After lunch we put our little electric engine on Poltergeist and explored the anchorage. We walked on the beach and bar looking at the shells of conchs, sand-dollars, and small bits of dead coral. We found unusual tracks winding their way through the sand, especially in between rocky areas. Paula thinks they are from snakes, but they were so numerous that we can’t imagine we wouldn’t have seen any actual reptiles. Plus Tommy points out there almost appear to be little foot marks on either side of the central smooth track line. Frustrating not to be able to Google this! Any ideas?

We looked at the beautiful roofs visible over the vegetation on Wax Cay, and took in the wreckage of the famous downed plane. Snorkelers seem to really enjoy this spot. It’s hard to see in the picture, but you can actually see the white wings of the plane on the sandy bottom.

Back at C Ghost we read, napped and watched the “boat show” as the anchorage filled in with a new crop of boats, including another Island Packet (we all waved to each other), a beautiful schooner, and several charter boats with families aboard.

Tonight for dinner we had baked chicken, canned corn, and “available vegetable salad”. The wind has now shifted, as predicted, to the NW and has picked up to about 15kts. The current is also shifting, so we will soon learn if we will have a bouncy night.