Green Cay Park and the Bahamas

Because I've got internet.....

Because we couldn't leave yesterday, Ange was kind enough to take us on a walking tour of the Green Cay Nature Center . The bird life there was astounding. We saw...

Wood storks. They scrape at the bottom of the pond with one foot, uprooting what they may want to eat, beak ready and open, and then scoop it up with an open mouth.



Anhingas drying their wings. Anhingas and cormorants are the only water birds that don't have waterproof wings. They have to dry them after swimming before they can fly again.


This is what they look like in the water. That's why they are called "snake birds".



We also saw little ducks "dabbing" or looking for food below the water - butt, butt.

We also white Ibis.

Moorhens

Little Blue Herons

Tri-colored herons

A Tricolored heron with 2 fish !

Green Herons, with their short necks

Turtles of all sorts, all sunning together on a large log. Look how their legs are tucked and they are sitting on their "tummies"

And of course, the ever popular alligator (shutter)

It was a nice crossing today, a little rolly, but good weather overall. It took 9 hours, almost exactly what we expected. We sailed the whole way -- beam reach, wind 15 to 20 kts, boat speed 6.5 to 7.5 kts, speed over ground 7.5 to 8.5 kts, with a little help from the gulf stream. That's good speed for a sailboat, or a trawler! Great milage, quiet, the boat in it's element. As we crossed, we watched the water temperature rise from 74.4 deg near Fl to 77.3 deg in the body of the Gulf Stream, back down to 76.6 deg near West End. Sort of boring, but that is good.... We lost sight of Florida about 25 miles out (tall buildings held FL in sight for a lot longer than the land mass did....). The sea was SO blue!

Here we are on the chart plotter, our GPS. Florida is at the bottom, sort of beige. The Bahamas are at the top, beige with dark shallow blue water above it. WE are the black boat shape about 1/3 of the way to West End.

We weren't totally alone. En route, almost to the Bahamas, we were passed by the Monarch of the Seas, a HUGE cruise ship. Just look at this thing! It seemed like there were few passengers, and it was moving very slowly. Luke negotiated by radio contact with the captain (or his 15 th level underling) which side we should pass on (port to port).

We also saw several schools of flying fish take flight. They fly for 20 -30 yards. No pictures, we're not fast enough!

Finally, West End is in sight!

When we first enter the Bahamian water, we have to fly a Quarantine Flag, indicating that we haven't gone through customs yet.

After we got our slip and all settled down, Luke visited the on-site customs office and cleared us in, Wickie, the boat, and the dinghy. We are official now, and can now fly the Bahamian courtesy flag! We are legal for 3 months.

The weather is supposed to be very windy and rainy the next 3 days, so we are here for a while. We will have internet for that time. After that, I don't know. We will have to see how this goes. Best to all and I'll blog as I can.

oh, and it's DEFINITELY WARM!!!!! We're loving it!!!