Thursday January 27, 2011 – After having spent the week lying low and recovering from my illness I am ready to go again. The weather is good so we decided to cruise to Pigeon Cay and few miles away to get away from George Town. Pigeon Cay is regarded as a day anchorage or an overnight anchorage if the weather is settled. We carefully picked our way through the coral heads and use eyeball navigation to get us into the anchorage looking for the bright blue color which means white sand beneath. We arrived to find our friends on the catamaran “Felix the Cat” and another sailboat that both lifted anchor just after we arrive. Two small skiffs are also there with guests from the local resort but within minutes they leave as well. Pigeon Cay has a sand spit that is 300 feet along and 20 feet wide that runs west of the island that is formed from the surf action that comes in around the island from the north and the south. It ‘s quite and unusual occurrence to see the current coming around both sides of and island from different directions. The water around the sand spit goes from one foot and then drops to 5 feet, making the on and off the dinghy (also known amongst cruisers as “the dink”) a bit of a challenge. We dinghy to the sand spit and go for a walk along the beach collecting sea shells but the no-see-ums at dusk send us quickly back to the boat. By sunset we are the only boat anchored at Pigeon Cay. With the gentle movement of the surf we relax for a evening of peace and solitude. Away from the lights of George Town we can truly appreciate the clear star-filled night.
Boatel anchored at Pigeon behind the sand spit
Friday January 28, 2011 – We head out early in the dinghy after a quick breakfast on the hunt for lobsters. We don’t have far to go because this small island is surrounded by reef. Ted free dives this morning but still not feeling 100% I opt to relax in the dinghy with my favourite music on my IPOD. As Ted explores the reefs and shallow ledges he gets further away from me so I start the motor, pick up the anchor and move closer to him so that he does not have to swim back as far. He reports back that he has speared a hog fish but it got away. Off he goes again. Within minutes he has broken the surface with a shout “got a Hogfish”. As he struggles to bring the large fish to the surface and back to the dink, I catch sight of the 8 pound, 27 inch giant Hogfish. The spear is heavy with the large fish and difficult to swim with put he manages to get it back to the dink before a barracuda or shark spots the free lunch. If you don’t keep the fish or lobster up and out of the water while you are swimming back then you risk losing your catch. After the swim back Ted is tire so we head back to the boat.
We pack a lunch and take the dink to the sand spit for a picnic on the beach. We pondered which side of the spit to anchor on first the north side and then to the south side but we figured our best bet was to anchor on the north side with an anchor off the bow in the deep water. We watched the dink a few minutes and decided that we had done a good job anchoring and headed off for our picnic and walk around the island. This beach does not get visited that often so there are lots of shells to choose from. We spend an hour exploring the island, photographing some gecko and vegetation. When we get back to the sand spit, Ted says “ I think we have water in the dinghy”. Well let me tell you friends, we have never had so much water in the dink. So much so that it was sloshing out of the back transom of the boat. The wind and waves had changed and it had swamped the boat. We discover a paddle, my shoes and our manual bailer strewn about the beach. The gas container is floating upside down and the battery for our electric start motor is under water. Surprisingly the motor started even though the battery is underwater! We started the electric bilge pump as we stood up to our chest in water holding the boat into the waves. Once the dink was ½ empty of water we got in and very slowly motored to back to the mothership with all of our belongings floating in the dink. Once we got back to Boatel Ted finished bailing the dink while I got the boat ready to lift anchor and head back to the George Town. Later Ted mentioned that we should have taken photos of the swamped dinghy but at the time we were just try to recover from our mishap.
The Hogfish got put in the fridge for dinner the next night because we decided to go to Two Turtles bar for the Friday night rib night in town. We meet new people on S/V “The Artful Dodger” who are looking to summer at Port Credit Harbour Marina so we share our experiences with them about wintering in Port Credit.
