After the bad weather passed we moved Moonstone across Abraham’s Bay to anchor near the Government Dock.....dock is perhaps a misnomer as it is so shallow we struggled to get the dinghy to it without grounding!

 

We are anchored in 2.6 metres of water - if you subtract the 1.6 metres that Moonstone needs to stay afloat there is 1 metre under our keel at low water.  High water is barely 0.5 metres deeper but as the weather has improved and the sea has calmed down we are happy with our 1 metre margin.   Claire has snorkelled around the boat and said she can see that there’s a gap between the seabed and our keel and that’s good news.

 

The water is like glass and we can see everything on the white sandy bottom. We have two large star fish below us that we recognise every time we look over the side.  Last night we shone a searchlight into the sea and there were hundreds of little fish of many colours, magenta, blue and green were dominant but also red and yellow.  This morning as we were getting the dinghy ready to go ashore we were surprised by a large manta ray hiding in Moonstone’s shadow on the seabed.  it must have been 4 feet across and was grey and dark blue in colour.  Apparently harmless but Claire wasn’t so keen to jump in and snorkel ..... I don’t blame her!

 

We strolled around the Government Dock settlement for a couple of hours, it was very hot and the chalky white roads were blinding in the sunlight.  Afterwards we stumbled across a beautiful little graveyard under the palms on the shore before heading back out to Moonstone and then onto a German yacht “Cayluna” for very pleasant sundowners to finish another day in paradise.