Sale Cay was our original destination from West End but due to the aforementioned shenanigans with the dog, we made it halfway to Mangrove Cay. The night at mangrove was a little rough with the wind kicking up early in the morning. We woke up at 7 as usual because duster demands to be fed and then fixed the loose bolts in the steering system causing loud squeaking noises. (Don’t want that to fail!) Eventually we were on our way. The wind was a perfect 14-18 broad reach almost the entire way. The boat pretty much hauls ass for something this size and I’m super pleased with her performance! We got sprinkled on by rain and even saw some squalls in the distance. The trip was so smooth though that jason read a book up on deck and I went below to do a workout at one point. Overall an excellent day! We rolled in to Sale Cay at a reasonable hour, edged up as shallow as we could and dropped the anchor. This is a much nicer protected anchorage than last night for sure.
Once we were all safely anchored Jason and I geared up for some spearfishing and took the dinghy out but there is literally nothing here. We saw a tiny fish and a bunch of sea grass. Very boring.
After drying off from our lackluster freediving expedition, we took the dinghy to the remains of a concrete pier, tied off, and walked the old road bed across the island to the other side with actual beaches and blue water! There were the concrete pad ruins of some old structure. I heard that it used to be a missile tracking station but also looks like it hasn’t been used in years.
On the way back we drove over by the mangroves. Most of the water there is only a foot deep and grassy except for a smattering of small sink holes with sandy bottoms that are a few feet deep. We found a larger sink hole that was closer to 4’ deep. We also saw a few turtles, stingrays, fish, and a small baby shark! If we were staying here I would definitely get out my paddleboard!
Once back on the boat I took our two last random coconuts and made two mason jars of coconut cream. One was used to made tropical drinks for dessert…the other may end up in coconut rice!
Our anchorage on Sale was super protected from wind and waves so we had a very pleasant night of sleep and woke up to a fantastic sunrise!
