The entry through the cut was quite scary past some rocks in mid channel called the Crown of Thorns, but once inside we found a place to anchor in 8m of water off the yacht club. You are supposed to snorkel down to your anchor to check it, but 25ft is a bit deep to snorkel and when we got above it there were several sharks around. These are not dangerous, I can’t remember what they are called, but they have no teeth, just hard plates to crush shell fish and don’t have to swim to breathe as they have muscles to pump water through their gills – but anyway we didn't wanted to be gummed to death. The usual sharks here are about 2m long Reef, Lemon (cos they have yellow spots) and Nursing sharks which we have swum with before in Brazil.

 

We have decided we don’t like deserted desert islands, we much prefer to have a few people around, stuff to do and things going on. We think next time we do something like this we will travel in company with other boats to share the experiences more. For now we are heading to the Eastern Caribbean and will go back to the UK and then next year we will just putz up and down the islands – no long distance sailing next year.

 

We expected the islands to look like the Maldives, just a patch of sand in the ocean with a solitary palm tree and a cocktail bar. They are, however, rocky either coral or limestone or something but do have the with sugar sand beaches and turquoise water. On the Atlantic side the sea and coast are rough and rugged, but up on the Exuma Bank all is fairly tranquil, expect we have had quite a lot of wind and from Mon to Wed it will get to 25kts.

 

No piccies as on Sat Phone connection