Position: 18:27.59N 64:31.71W

Date: Friday 28^th February 2014

After an impressive morning at the Baths we sailed around the eastern side of Tortola to Marina Cay.  This is another location where you have to use a mooring buoy, with the mooring area holding perhaps 50 buoys. Marina Cay itself is a tiny island with a small resort based there.  A large coral reef extending south from the island provides shelter from the prevailing winds.  We picked up a buoy and after a few minutes got into the water to snorkel over the reef.  The water was rather cloudy, but on our way to the reef we spotted a sting ray with a large turtle swimming across the bottom nearby. The reef itself was rather bleached with very little live coral, but there were a large number of fish nevertheless.

Here’s a view from the bow of the boat looking towards the protecting reef:

In the evening we went ashore for a drink in the resort restaurant with a view to eating there as well if it looked OK. The staff were rather moody and unwelcoming so we decided against staying there any longer and went back to the boat to cook our own food.

During the night there was very little wind which was good.  However there was a strong current running through the moorings which caused the boat to go forwards over the mooring line and several times the mooring buoy was pulled under the boat creating a quite unpleasant noise as it scraped itself along the underside of the hull.

The fuel dock outside the resort makes a rather surreal image with a red telephone box perched on the end of the pontoon.  Here I am in the box: