We did one last load of laundry and grabbed a few more loaves of bread from Lorraine's mom before a great upwind sail south to White Point.
A lot of our friends were heading to Oven Rock, but we wanted to check out a few coral heads at the point. Holding wasn't fabulous and we ended up with some waves wrapping around the point and rocking us, but we stuck with it. At first we didn't see much, but ended up on a nice coral head and decided to hunt some snapper (scored!) and got the real surprise of the day, a big spider crab! The kids gave up on us and headed back to the boat, but we hit another head and I'm so glad we did--there was a pair of spotted moray eels there and they were NOT shy! I've seen green morays before, but never a spotted one so that was pretty cool. Our friends anchored nearby on S/V Bella Vita found two really nice conch, too! When Frank took a book over to help with the cleaning process, he came back with one of the conch. Andrey and Natalia had fish and conch and shared their bounty with us! So we decided to have "Bella Vita conch salad" and pan fried snapper for dinner, and cooked and cleaned the crab for the next day.
🐟A note on hunting/fishing--we do it for sustenance, not just for fun. We like to supplement our provisions with fresh fish, conch, and lobster when we can. We don't often hunt reef fish due to risk of ciguatera poisoning, but sometimes we do if the locals are. If we get a big fish, we will freeze some of it or gift it to friends. The closest we come to "sport" is shooting lion fish as they are an invasive species. While you can eat them, we aren't quite ready to handle the poisonous spines and most that we hit are so small that it's a lot of risk for a little meat. When we get them we will either put them in the dink and run them somewhere away from anchored boats or swim them away from the reef and let them out in the current, figuring sharks will enjoy the meal.🐟
Ok, so more fun! The next day we ran a few miles south to Oven Rock. It looks like an oven! The draw there is a trail to a cave and as we didn't visit last year, this was new to us. Or was it? As we descended into the cave I instantly felt like I had been there before. But how? That feeling intensified as we got further into the cave, saw the bats, and started swimming in the water. This is a seriously cool cave, with cool, clear water, stalactites, stalagmites, bats, and fun rocks to climb over. So glad we came. And thanks to the power of the internet and my old college buddies on Facebook, we confirmed that I HAVE been in this cave before! We snorkeled it during my Tropical Marine Science class in the late '90's and one of my classmates had a photo that confirmed we were in the same cave. So it wasn't an entirely new experience for at least one member of the crew!
With daylight to burn and smooth seas, we continued south, out of Galliot Cut, and are headed for Leaf Cay/Lee Stocking Island for the next few days.
~Jo, 1st Mate
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