We needed a stop off point before tackling the trip back to Nassau because of the VPR rules and we chose to return to Shroud Cay – originally with the idea that Jamie and I would get to see the little stream that bisects the island. In fact, we left Warderick Wells a little later than we’d anticipated because we met a French/US couple who were doing a similar trip to ours in a monohull at the National Park HQ. They were finishing their trip a little differently in that they were shipping their boat back after exploring the east coast of the US. We did consider this option quite seriously, but in the end decided that Plan A should prevail.While Chris and I were in the HQ using the internet, Jamie and Alex explored the island on their own and managed to climb and find Boo Boo Hill and see the blowholes on the Bahama Sound side of the Cay. This trip has given them a lot of opportunities to become independent because we’re just not worried about security like we are in the UK. It’s a bit like the freedom Chris and I had as kids – at Jamie’s age I was able to take my dog for a walk over the fields and down by the canal – something I wouldn’t dream of allowing her to do today.
When we got to Shroud Cay, something went awry with our mooring buoy pickup technique. I just couldn’t get the d****d thing up – partly because it was damaged and had lost the float which keeps the hoop that you catch with the boat hook on the surface and partly because of the wind and mostly because I just had one of those days. The upshot was that Chris had to retrieve the boat hook from the sea bed twice and when we finally got hooked on using one of our fenders as a float, our lines and the fender lines and the mooring buoy were hopelessly tangled. This resulted in some hysterical antics as Chris tried to weight the fender down with his body and which fought back with apparently animated vigour.
Anyway, having lost most of the day and to make things a bit more interesting for the children at Shroud Cay, Chris did a treasure hunt on the beach for them. This involved some superbly creative clues involving visual identification, solving riddles, taking bearings and tracking. The reward was ... a toy fish!!
The kids loved it but said it was too short!!
Bot pic: Can you solve the riddle?
