January 18-19, 2021

Yesterday, we took the dinghy to the eastern shore of Great Harbour Cay.  We went for a walk on the northern half of a 7 mile stretch of beach with beautiful, clear, electric blue water.  Pictures can’t really capture the intensity of the color.  It was cool and cloudy so we weren’t inspired to swim.  We walked a couple miles along the beach to some rock formations that used to be caves, but the roofs had fallen.

We saw an old abandoned stone structure that I suspect was the former Sugar Beach Club, and only 3 other houses.  We did not see another human.

Back by the boat, we did see a stingray, 2-3 feet across.  We saw a pen the other day that was no longer intact, but as it used to be “Stingray City” a cruise ship excursion, and I bet he was an escapee.  Even better, we also saw an Eagle Ray.  It was huge – 4-5 feet across, black with spots and gliding gracefully.   As soon as he realized we were following him, he glided twice as fast away from us, and flipped a wing tip out of the water as he took off…

Today was a big day.  We had a long dinghy ride to the marina to get our 5 day follow up covid tests.  For the test, a nurse came to the marina, and did our tests along with 3 other couples.  The nurse was really nice, and the process was easy and efficient.  The nasal swab felt weird but not painful.  (It looked like a pregnancy test to me, with a little pink line on the plastic strip… If I were younger it would have been unnerving!)  We scanned QR codes on our phones that linked the tests to our health visas.

After our tests, we dinghied over to the government dock to try and walk around the tiny town (only 500 people live on the island) but the wind was blowing hard against the high stone dock, with no cleats near the stairs, so it was back to the boat to ready ourselves to leave tomorrow.  Jeff also made an awesome fish chowder with the wahoo we caught and some shrimp we provisioned.  I’m going to go eat the chowder now.