December 8, 2011.

The anchorage was the calmest of any spot we've stopped this season. We woke to light winds and the promise of a sunny day. After breakfast we traced down an electrical problem with our fridge. It turned out to be a bad ground connection but was quickly fixed.

We dinghied in towards shore and slipped into the water to do a little hunting. The bottom was mostly rocky but offered decent protection for lobsters so we were optimistic. The water was less than 8 feet deep for several hundred yards. Once we reached deeper water my ears started giving me problems. I took a lobster in about 10 feet of water but then the water started getting deeper. We were getting swept along by the outgoing tide and soon found a Nassau Grouper in the 15 pound range. He's out of season and I just couldn't bring myself to drop the hammer on him. Part of it was trying to keep my Karma intact and the other part was that my ears were hurting to the point that I was getting nauseous. Hiding near the base of the very next rock was a huge Black Grouper. He is not protected so I dropped down to give it a go. My head was pounding, I was feeling queasy and even though he was hiding under a fairly small rock I just couldn't put forth the effort needed to take him. It was gonna be at least 2 or 3 dives, fighting a pretty big current, I just didn't have it in me. Staying in the water was going to be a waste of time so we hopped back into the dink and headed home.

After lunch I popped a decongestant, Christy poured some magical crap in my ears and I took a nap. After an hour I was feeling better so we headed in to shore to meet the iguanas and do some beach combing.

There are 3 cays that I’m aware of in the Exumas that have populations of wild iguanas. There’s Allen Cay, Bitter Guana Cay and Leaf Cay.

This was our first stop at any of them. The iguanas are cool as hell. When you reach the beach they come storming out of the brushline. The bigger ones are every bit of 3 feet long. I brought my iguana stick and they sensed my willingness to use it so they were only a bit aggressive with us but they did seem to enjoy beating the shit out of each other.

After communing with the wildlife for a bit we headed across the cay to the ocean side in search of some beachiness. We found a pretty nice tidal pool surrounded by acres of ironshore.

After walking for a bit we did find a series of small beaches that were actually quite clean and yielded only a few beans and some seaglass.

The wind is building, we're very protected and looking forward to what tomorrow brings.....