Rudder Cay

A testiment to the "floatability of Boston Whalers

We pulled up the anchor after 7 nights at Lee Stocking Island. Ut had proved to be a nice protected spot to ride out the high winds. We did have Internet one day. It was a fluke. Apparently, a NOAA subcontractor had an open modem and we were able to pick it up. I could never get it again and make it work, but were thankful for the one day I had it. We did not have cell phone coverage. Our families were getting worried about us since we could not communicate with them. All was well.

Our passage to Rudder Cay was along the West Coast of several Cays almost connected together in quite shallow water. We had whizzed past them on the East coast side on our way to George Town. In some places we had two feet under the keel. I was stationed up front watching for any large rocks or reefs that might be in our way, while Bob watched the sonar and depth sounder. At times the depth sounder went crazy because we were in water too shallow for it to understand.

As the day wore on, the wind and waves continued to calm down to the point that it was so calm you could see the bottom under the full moon clearly that night. I took this picture of the bottom off the boat in the morning. It was the most peaceful night we’d had in a week. Some nights the waves slapping the boat were so loud that I use foam ear plugs to go to sleep at night.

Botton Photo in clear water

Photo of small ray swimming by the boat

Boats are inherently noisy. It seems like there is always some engine, motor, or pump running all the time. Now that isn’t a bad thing, especially when you want them to run. Plus you have the noise of passing boats, and slapping of the waves on the hull. When there is a quiet day that usually means that there is no wind and that the boat will be hot. On the rare day when there is no wind, but the temperature is pleasant too, well then, you have an extremely nice day at anchor. Friday was one of these days. We could hear the birds chirping on the nearby island. Aah!

Friday morning we put the dinghy in the water and poked around the islands near Rudder Cay. Most are private, including Rudder Cay, so we weren’t able to go ashore. While we were looking around in the dingy, the same seaplane we had seen at Lee Stocking took off from Musha Cay, the next Cay North from Rudder Cay, unfortunately I didn't have the camera out.

This was the first night when we had enough reception to watch the news. You may remember reading that we had discovered when we got to George Town, that we found out we had lost all reception for the Satellite TV. It is nice to be able to catch up on the news.

We will move on to Little Farmers Cay next. It is only a couple of hours North, so will be a short cruise.