March 7, 2008

We decided to start heading north this morning. Our next stop was scheduled to be Water Cay. It was only 14 miles so it should have been an easy day. Not.

The wind built overnight to about 20 knots. The wind wasn’t the problem, it was the seas. The Cays here are all in a row with some gaps in between cays exceeding 6 miles wide. On the east side of the cays the water is thousands of feet deep, while to the west the water is generally 20 feet or so. So when the tide comes in you have water that’s a thousand feet deep rushing in and up onto the Bahamas Bank. Then when the tide ebbs it really screams out the gaps and into the ocean.

So we had the tide ebbing and the wind from east south east which gave us what? That’s right class, wind opposing sea, a sea state that resembles a washing machine. A very large washing machine. Oh yeah and throw in giant rollers just for fun and you get a ride that’s “interesting” at best. Oh look, and there are several squall lines moving through, with gusts and rain as well.

I was being lazy and everything considered I decided not to put up the main. It turned out to be a good choice as we were moving along nicely with just half the genoa rolled out. We did have it all out at the beginning but I deemed it necessary to pull some in to better control the boat. So we ended up with half the genoa flying for most of the trip, while still doing 5-6 knots.

We had the anchor down by 1100 and decided to get in the water. We did a little exploring and found a pretty good sized Triggerfish to add to the refrigerator. While setting up on a real nice Grouper the firing band on my spear broke. Crap.

We ran back to the big boat and replaced the band and headed back to the same spot. As soon as we jumped into the water we were face to face with the biggest shark either one of us as ever seen outside of an aquarium. Christy and I use a set of hand signals if either one of us sees something scary in the water. Different signals indicate the level of the danger (IE big shark, big Barracuda, medium Barracuda, fat guy in a thong etc.). We both saw this monster at the same time and turned towards each other at the same moment. Hands started flashing signs faster than Helen Keller telling a joke. So that pretty much ended the hunting gathering for the day.

When we saw the shark we were discussing it as a 10 footer. Then I realized that our dinghy is over nine and a half feet long. This thing was way bigger than out dink. It wasn’t some lazy swimming, Nurse Shark either. I have no idea what type shark it was but even at its large size it darted around actively. He was a predator, he was hunting and we were lucky to see him. It was awe inspiring and really great to see, although getting out of the water was pretty much the highlight of our encounter.