After a rather rolling night at anchor at Rum Cay, we left early for our sail to Cat Island, about 8 hours away. It was an interesting trip. We finally caught our first fish! We got a nice fat skipjack tuna. The fish book says the meat is strong and "not to everone's taste" but nutrious. I was hesitant, but we went ahead and filleted him on Luke’s new fish table! The fish cleaning table is intended to keep the blood and gore off the deck! Thanks to Charlie at home for all of the assistance he gave Luke in making this table! Nice, huh??? (you can see a few of our newly collected old fishing floats there in the bottom right of the picture).
The guy was larger than he looks on the table - we got 4 nice size fillets. I cooked one for dinner and it was great! The meat was almost as white as a yellow fin tuna and very mild. Thank goodness!!! We thought Smokey would be fascinated with the fish, but she was just a little gun shy. No big adventure here, as she stared at it,, frozen, from a safe distance. She wouldn’t even eat any of the fresh fish tidbits.
Next, we caught something so big that it broke my fishing rod. We could see the darn thing under water as I reeled it in, and it was large, roundish/flatish, and brown. I think it was a shark of some sort. He did fight for a while, but finally took the leader and lure and broke my 150 lb test fishing line. The rod was bent over so badly during the effort that 3 of the top 4 little round line guides broke off of the rod. We agreed we didn't want to boat him/it anyway.
Diesel and water were a top agenda for us. We stopped at Hawks Nest Marina, at the southwestern tip of Cat Island for both. $6/gallon for gas! Good thing we're a sail boat; vowed to sail more, motor less!
The tiny marina is peppered with sharks and large rays, waiting for the cleaning scraps of the many fishing boats that pass that way. It’s a pretty view of the mangrove lined inlet.
We even saw a blue heron! We don’t see many here.
We arrived at New Bight,just in time to set the anchor and watch the green flash. Early the next morning we left for the big 6 mile trip to Fernandez Bay to meet up with friends Dee and Dave, from Savannah. They are on their boat in the Abacos, but their in-laws Jan and Rick flew down from Iowa (burrrrrr), picked them up, and flew them all to Fernandez! What a treat to see them again and meet Jan and Rick! Here they are on the beach.
We all piled into a rented a car and took off to explore the island. First, of course, a return visit to Father Jerome’s Hermitage, Mt. Alvernia. http://www.examiner.com/caribbean-travel-in-stockton/father-jerome-s-hermitage-a-cat-island-destination?render=print This was his home for the last 17 years of his life. It is built on the highest point in the Bahamas, a whopping 206 ft high. Here is the view of the back of the hermitage.
You may remember from last year’s blog --- Father Jerome was a very short man… here is Luke standing in his chapel.
Luke took this postcard pretty shot of our anchorage at Fernandez Bay.
The next morning we resumed our auto tour and headed northward on the island. There are more of the old Loyalist ruins here than we’ve seen on any other island. Here is a beautiful example of an old Loyalist church, along the shore.
And of course, one more shot of Latitudes at sunset. We're tried an assortment of ways to catch a green flash, but unsuccessfully. We'll keep trying - it IS real!
The current anchorage is 16 miles further north, still on Cat Island, at Pigeon Cay. The forecast is for high winds (25 knots) on Friday (3-11) and this is a good place to ride them out. After that the plan is to make one more stop on Cat and then cross to the Eluthera Island on Sunday/Monday. By the way, for those of you still struggling with winter, it's 93 and sunny, not humid, balmy breezes (don't hate us!!!!!) and we're leaving now for a late afternoon mangrove cruise by dinghy.
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