What a Stop!

We are happy that we stopped at these two little remote islands of the south Bahamas in the middle of the ocean! They are only dots on the chart and we haven´t found any information or heard about them. They were beautiful! Crystal clear turquoise water, white sandy beaches and no other boats around....It is amazing that these Islands are so close to the US yet it seems like you are back in the South Sea, where we had whole islands to ourselves. We reckon its just too far from mainland Bahamas for the charter boats to get to, so they will remain unspoilt, for the moment.

The marine life was fantastic. Turtles, Lobster, thousands of Conch, huge Helmets, lots of fish, including sharks and not so friendly barracudas. Emma will surely tell the story of how she got followed by a big, aggressive barracuda, whose mouth was wide open with long nasty teeth ready to bite her!! (and how Axel came to my rescue with his speargun in hand. Even then the nasty fella was going for us!).

Yesterday we changed from Anguila island to Cay Sal and met another boat - Nancy and George on Steel Lady, from Florida Keys. We went snorkeling with them and got 4 big lobster for our dinner which we BBQ´ed on Freefall. So delicious! We could have got more; they were just walking around in the daylight!! We have never seen that before.

This morning we sailed to an old wreck five miles from the island and were snorkeling there. Again lots of fish between the old wreck pieces of the old ship. It didn´t take long until the first sharks came to have a look at the newcomers. They were reef sharks, not big ones, only around 4 feet, but its always a bit uncomfortable when they are around. Generally they don´t bother you, however George speared a reef fish but unfortunately didn´t hold it out of the water. You should either hold the struggling and bleeding fish out of the water or put him in your dinghy immediately, otherwise the sharks get excited and aggressive thinking its their dinner! On his way back to the boat George got attacked by a shark who mistook his arm for this fish so ended up giving George a nasty bite!! He was close to his boat so got safely home and we all got out of the water pretty quickly! George now has a big wound with lots of teeth marks on his left arm, which we steri-striped (stitches) for him; the 1st time we´ve used our steri-strips during our whole trip! After that drama Nancy made us all a great Mexican lunch then we said our goodbyes and set sail...

We expect to arrive at Key West tomorrow afternoon (Fri). At the moment there is no wind and the Gulf stream is against us.

Axel (& Em xx)

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