A Restful Week at Compass Cay

May 16 -20, 2016 (Days 20-24)

The past few days have been very restful with very little planned each day.  On Monday, May 16^th we took a tender ride to Staniel Cay to pick up the Johnny Cake Bread that we had ordered from Rhonda a couple of days ago.  The “bread” turned out to be very different from what we had received last year in Spanish Wells.  It turned out to be good, just not what we were expecting.  On Tuesday, May 17^th we once again traveled to Spaniel.  Our friends, Randy and Laurie (Wastin’ Away) needed to get fuel in their dingy and were not sure if they would make it that far so we offered to travel with them and that would give us the opportunity to top off our fuel in the tender as well.  They ran out of gas about 200 yards from the fuel dock so we towed them in with our tender.  It was a cute site, a tender towing a tender.  No big deal, we all got fuel, had some lunch, visited the local General Store (bought nothing) and then returned to the Compass Cay Marina.  It was a very nice ride.  Back at Compass I decided to take a little swim.  Compass Cay Marina is the only place that I know of that you can swim with the sharks and at the same time see all kinds of reef fish.  There is live coral right under the docks in the marina.  I got to see Queen Angel fish, Parrot fish, Squirrel fish, Nassau Groupers, Barracuda, and lots of other reef fish.  After my swim, it was time to prepare for another Compass Cay Pot Luck dinner.  This is the last night for our friends, Bart and Nat (Dusty Seas). 
On Wednesday, May 18^th saw off Nat and Bart and then we headed out with Jamal, Randy, and Laurie to do some fishing.  With 5-6 foot seas we quickly decided that this would not be a pleasure fishing trip, but something that could become dangerous for the crew on the deck.  It was not worth someone getting hurt so we turned around and returned back to the marina.  After cleaning up and turning the boat back into our “camper” we took another swim and an afternoon snooze. 
On Thursday, May 19^th we saw off our friends Randy and Laurie who headed to Nassau to meet their family and visit Atlantis for a few days.  Bill and I took our tender over to Rachael’s Bubble bath.  It was interesting to see it at low tide.  It looks quite different at low tide.  Because the tide was low we were able to climb up on the ridge and see the Exuma Sound side.  It is hard to explain but it was very cool to see how deep the trench is that overflows into Rachael’s.  At high tide the bubble bath is much more interesting and fun, but it is not possible to climb up the ridge at high tide.  The view was fabulous as it is 360 degrees of beautiful scenery, colors, islands and flats.  After Rachael’s we cruised over to the “caves” but did not go in because it was beginning to rain and looked very threatening.  We did not want to be out in a storm so we headed back to the marina.  We spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning out our guest room and preparing the boat for Jessica (our daughter) to arrive on Saturday.  We put together the fighting chair and packed away all of the fishing gear so our guest room is now available.  It seems nice to be able to pack everything away and neaten up but I am not thrilled with having the fighting chair filling the cockpit.  I loose most of my space for an outside dinner table, the hammock, and just plain chairs for sitting around.

Friday, May 20^th is a day of finishing up the laundry, making beds, and fixing the spreader lights in the morning.  In the afternoon we took the tender on an excursion of checking out some nearby islands and a trip up toward Warderick Well to “the aquarium”.  The aquarium is an island structure that has live coral heads on the inside that houses just about any kind of reef fish imaginable.  I will have more about this location next week as we intend to take Jessica up there. 

Tonight we had after dinner cocktails and Bahamian salad on Cronulla, Portsmouth, NH  with Heather and Richard.  It was a fun night of Portsmouth stories, boating adventures stories and lots of laughs.  Heather and Richard spend their time between Badgers Island Marina, Portsmouth (Bow Lake), Atlanta where Richard has a business and the Bahamas in the springtime.  The M/V Cronulla is a custom built Selene.   It had cherry interior and was absolutely gorgeous.  The name Cronulla came from Cronulla Beach in Sydney, Australia. 

This week has been fairly quiet with many of our friends heading back north or onto other locations and resting for what we expect to be a very busy adventure next week while Jessica is here with us.  We have a very busy and adventure packed week planned for her so it was good for us to have some down time.