The moon was not full anymore, but still shone vividly at dawn on Thursday, March 5
We’d arranged to meet two of the families at Thunderball Grotto at 0900, which was slack high tide. We were leery about getting in and out of the cave at high tide, but they assured us that it would not be a problem and said they thought it was better to go when there was no current.
We left Kosmos at 8:40, figuring it would take us 20-minutes to get there. But even though it was supposed to be nearly slack tide, the current was strong and our little 3 hp electric motor struggled. For a portion of the time, we were only going a little over one knot. It took 40-minutes to get there. Eric was frustrated. He’s been contemplating switching to a fast gas motor for the last few months, and he announced that this was the last straw – he was buying a new motor. When we got to the cave, we could barely see the entrance. We don’t think we would have been able to find it at all had we not been there before.
As our friends had assured us, getting in was not difficult. Here was a selfie with a view of the entrance from the inside.
The cave felt a lot smaller at high tide – it almost looked like a completely different place.
Here was a video of what it looked like underwater. The underwater holes that Eric and Keith had liked to swim in and out of were notably deeper, and they didn’t attempt to go through them.
Here were Erik and Andrea from Traveler.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay long as the current came back with a vengeance, making swimming both strenuous and potentially dangerous given that there were hazards in the cave. The lines that we’d held onto in our past visits were set for low tide and were well under water right now. Here were our friends as they prepared to exit.
We found exiting to be more difficult than entering because the current was so strong.
After snorkeling, Eric cleaned the water line and worked on the hull a little bit. He was getting tired and was debating about whether he should stop when a big shark swam under the boat. He decided it was a good stopping point.
In the late afternoon, we went over to the Cruiser’s Beach to have some time on dry land. Since our friends weren’t there, we didn’t stay long.
We had another colorful dusk.
And the moon was again amazingly bright.
