16:11N 88:13W

 

After two beautiful days and nights anchored off Nicolas Cay, we moved a few miles north up the Belize chain of cays to Tom Owens Cay, dodging coral reefs as we did so.  The area around here is littered with reefs and shoal ground but if you move when the sun is high overhead and visibility good then they are easy to spot.  Many of our charts are inaccurate so it’s eyeball navigation all the way.

 

This morning we had a wonderful snorkel on the reef spending ages watching two huge spotted leopard rays feeding.  We were very close to them and at times they would eyeball us, then move on.  They are so graceful in the water.  We also had an up close and personal experience with a small reef shark that came just a little too close for comfort!  We’d seen a few nurse sharks sleeping under rocks – they are non aggressive provided you don’t annoy them – and one shark swimming right past Bandit.  But this one was far too inquisitive for its own good – swam right up to David who reacted by punching it in the nose.  Good call I say – I might point out that at this stage I was clinging to his back peeking out warily!

 

Tomorrow the wind is meant to pick up so we’ll head to the port of Placencia to formally check in with immigration....and stock up on dwindling fresh food supplies.