Sunrise on Friday, May 9

The rolliness had increased and the anchorage was becoming uncomfortable. Sadly, it was forecast to get worse as the winds continued to shift. We were disappointed because, on paper, it looked like this anchorage should have been calm, as it was protected from the wind direction. But the swell apparently wrapped around the island and got into the anchorage.

The plan for today was for all the families to go to The Washing Machine together. As you can see in the map below, there was an extensive saltwater river system on Shroud Cay.  The Washing Machine was at the mouth of the river next to the red dot, and we got there by taking the dinghy through the river system.

Since our dinghy was slow, we were the first to set off. We hopped in the dinghy at about 0845. The river closest to our anchorage (purple dot) was too shallow, so we followed the shoreline northwest a ways to the mouth of a somewhat deeper river. This was a photo of the mouth, as seen from the distance.

Initially, when we turned in, there was low coral rocks on both sides of us. But that quickly gave way to a mangrove estuary similar to the one we’d explored in Fernandez Bay. It seemed to go on forever!

Here was a shot looking back at the river mouth. If you look carefully, you can actually see where it transitioned from rock to mangroves.

For pretty much the entire length of the river, it was very shallow with an occasional random deeper spot. We did see a few creatures in the estuary, including a turtle.

We were wondering if we’d ever get there when we turned a corner and the mouth came into view. One family was already there.

We pulled the dinghy up onto the sand at 0950. The rest of the families pulled in minutes later. There were two families that we hadn’t met before. They were both in the northern anchorage (blue dot in map above). The “washing machine” was the strong current that ran through the unusually deep water between the two rocks above. At the moment, it was an outgoing tide, so the tide pulled people out to sea. One could simply walk into the deep spot and get sucked in, but the more adventurous of our group jumped into the water from the cliff on the right.

Looking southwest at the mouth of “the washing machine” and the shoreline of the ocean.

However, due to the large sandbar that surrounded the deep spot, one couldn’t get sucked out to sea. People simply rode the current until hit they hit the sand, then walked along the sandbar to the deep spot and did it again. 

View of the outlet from the sand bar.

We stayed through slack tide, where there was no current at all and everyone could swim as if it were a swimming pool. We left at noon, which was not long after the tide shifted to the other direction. Navigating out was tricky due to the low tide. This was a photo looking back at the mouth. We had to take a different river to the east side because the river we took to the west side wasn’t navigable during low tide.

Most of the middle of the river was too shallow to transit, so we had to hug the mangrove line in many places. If you look at the second dinghy in the photo below, you can see we mean really hug the mangrove line around every little inlet.

We saw several turtles swimming around near the mouth.

This river let out at the northern anchorage (blue dot in the map above). Even though this anchorage had looked to be more protected, we hadn’t come here because the charts indicated it was too shallow for us. When we’d been talking, both families anchored up here said that the actual depths at low tide were deeper than the charts indicated, and assured us that it would be a safe anchorage for us.

When we popped out of the river, we were struck by how much calmer this anchorage was than ours. We stopped by one of the boats to ask their advice. It was now low tide, and he showed us with a boat hook that it was seven feet deep at that moment. He also showed us his track in, which helped assure us that we wouldn’t hit a shallower patch if we followed his track. We seriously considered moving here. 

After lunch, Keith and the other kids in our anchorage hung out over at Oceananigans for the afternoon. Back onboard Kosmos, it had gotten rolly enough that we decided that we really needed to move. In the early evening, when the tide was higher (but not high tide, because if we got stuck in the sand at high tide, we’d never be able to get unstuck), we picked Keith up and moved north. While it was only a mile as the crow flies, we had to go out farther to avoid the shallow areas, so it was a 3 mile ride, which took about a half hour. We were pleased to report that we made it in just fine, and anchored near our two new friends.

Sunset