Manjack Cay ...

March 31 - Yesterday was a gorgeous, sunny, light breeze day.  We were going to leave for Guana Cay but decided to take advantage of the warming and spend another day proguing about the island.  After breakfast we took a long, slow dinghy ride across the anchorage, stopping along the way to chat with Lee and Barbara on Windward, who are out of Long Island.  We dinghied up the coastline, staying in really close and going only about idle speed, spotting fish and crabs and investigating the shore line.   After a good hour or so we turned back and on the way followed around a nice grey snapper we’d brought out of his lair on our first pass.  Shortly afterwards, we were passed by a pair of beautiful and good sized manta rays – perhaps three to four feet across – which were swimming along the shoreline in the opposite direction.  Finally back at Alizee, we each took a turn snorkeling over to the shipwreck on shore, perhaps 300 yards away, where we saw a number of fish making a home in the artificial reef developing from the shipwreck. 

Later a couple from Bounty IV, a 1988 Pacific Seacraft 34, dinghied by to find out what make of boat was Alizee; they the other cruisers we’ve met have been here since November, and are planning to head back to their home in Toronto soon.  Like David Sawyer (who just flew out today), they are leaving their boat on the hard at Abaco Yacht Services.  They suggested I ask soon, if I was interested in leaving my boat there, because the dry storage is usually pretty booked up.  I still haven’t decided what to do.  I have to get the water maker and the macerator pump repaired, and I’d have to pay duty on parts shipped into the Bahamas.  My insurance would also go up substantially if I leave Alizee here … probably double.  Yet, going back to Oriental will put wear and tear on the boat and then I have to bring it back down here in early November to head on to the Caribbean.  Whatever, I think I’ll be in the Bahamas until early June, and then either move Alizee north or, if I put her on the hard here, stay a week or two longer.