Jonathon and I moved the boat to the South end of the pond this morning. We didn’t crank up the motors, we just let the jib pull us off anchor and coasted up into the new location in silence. Our goal was a change of scenery.. and we wanted to explore southern Normans Cay today by kayak and dinghy, the new anchorage would provide a better platform for the days activity.
Its 12:30 and we just got back from our off boat tour. We ranged as far as 3 miles from the boat, paddled many shallows and mangrove marshes. I took the dinghy and floated along while Jono ranged out with the Hobie. We found perfect shelling beaches and some beautiful shallows between picturesque mini islands inside the protected waters of Normans. The little half day trek was lots of fun and completely validated the effort required to bringing a kayak along with us.
We brought a kayak before but just didn’t use it much. This pedal powered Hobie is much more fun and with Jono along I knew it would be put to good use. Normans is a great place to hang out off the boat, I haven’t taken much time here in past transits, normally we just stop off in the south anchoarage on the way to somewhere else. If you have to wait on weather I highly recommend spending a few days here, Normans provided us with plenty to look at and explore even with the wind blowing 20-25.
Jono and I are developing a really bad habit here on SYL. I guess it comes with being in the Bahamas but man, it’s hard to break it. Today was worse than normal so I thought I’d log it in. The past few days our after lunch our evening naps are getting longer and longer! Not a bad habit I guess, but it is habit forming!
Today was exceptionally nice, we both slept over two hours. Resting comfortably during the day has become a regular thing lately…. We both get up early (6:30 to listen to weather) and sometimes stay up late… you know nearly 9 so we get pretty tired…. With all the kayaking and exploring, a guy can get pretty worn out… lol.
Jono may be thwarting my weight loss program just by being on board, he does 99% of the work so my exercise volume is not what it used to be on SYL. Mike and Ted (the other seawind owners) have all these nice features they added to their boats but I have something they don’t have…. I have a voice activated winch handle. I tell Jono to tighten the sail and he does it!!! Pretty sweet huh? I can’t wait to brag on it with the guys…
Today’s lunch was Jono’s special – chili dogs. He does variations on condiments but his main ingredients stays true to form, if we can’t think of something else we want… it’s always a chili dogs as a default.
We went fishing in the dinghy at 5PM, nothing was biting.. so we decided to check out how big the waves are offshore. Once we cleared the entrance we could see it was not too bad for our 10’ boat. We drove the dinghy to a small rocky island a quarter mile out to see if we could land on it and search the seldom walked eastern shore. I let Jono off and backed the dink away hoping he could make it to the big side on foot but there was just no way to cross the island to the offshore side.. It was still a worthy adventure, going out was into the wind, coming back was downwind, it was a comfort to know coming home would be easier than going out. We both got very wet, I guess that happens when a 5’ wave breaks right when you go by it. It was a good adventure but alas mate’ no pirate booty collected. We seem to be unwittingly accomplishing quite a lot of off boat adventure during these “down days” at Normans.
Laurie on “Forever Young” told me about a shelling beach here at Normans, I marked it on my charts during our last trip. We found that spot today on our morning adventure. The scenery was better than the shell hunting but we did bring home some Bahamas booty. The spot was gorgeous, Jono got a picture of our landing site. Small rocky mini islands dotted the inner coast line like easter eggs laid on a baby blue blanket.
There are caves in the side of the cliffs here at Normans Pond, we are parked between two of them… nice to look when you wake up in the morning and… the craggy rock cliffs provide great wind protection. Tides in the pond are about 3 feet, moving in and out of the pond requires close attention to tides due to the shallow and intricate passage to sea. We have traversed it several times by dinghy now, so I don’t expect a problem exiting tomorrow.
