Continued… When Christi and Keith returned to the dinghy dock, they saw that Kosmopolitan wasn’t there. They walked out to the southwest edge of the marina to watch for Eric’s arrival. Looking north, we could see the marina, the little shallow bay next to it, and the sea wall that separates them. The marina was clearly a dredged portion of the little bay.
Looking south, we could see that the beach on between Xuma’s and this point was lined with chairs.
Last night, we’d gotten a text from a fellow cruiser letting us know that the little market at Highbourne Cay Resort and Marina, which was a little north of Shroud Cay, had eggs in stock. We’d decided to move to Highbourne Cay this morning so we could buy some eggs. We really wanted to have eggs onboard because we were planning to leave on a passage from the Bahamas to Florida tomorrow (Monday). Eggs were a great passage food as they were easy to cook and digest.
We were up early and got the boat ready to go. We pulled up anchor at 0700, which was high tide. We had intended to follow the same track out of the anchorage as we’d taken in, but a boat was anchored in the middle of our track. We had to go into shallow water to get around it. We only had ½ foot of water under us, so had it been slack or low tide, we would have been stuck inside the anchorage until the tide rose.
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.
After school and morning chores, we went snorkeling with the other families. Only the adults and some of the older kids came; most of the kids skipped it. Christi forgot her camera, and since the photos from snorkeling in Little Bell Cay and hadn’t come out, we decided not to make a special trip back to Kosmos to retrieve it.
This morning the lady from the park ranger station sang to us about the park rules and payment procedures again. We were planning to move again and we spent a fair amount of time discussing route. The fastest way to get there would have been to go up on the east side of the islands, but it was likely going to be uncomfortable in the ocean. We opted to take the west side, where the water was protected. Just as we had to circle the island to get into the anchorage, we had to circle the island to get back out.