Back to Norman’s via Shroud

2/19 - After a delicious breakfast of pancakes with berries (the frozen kind, not fresh, but still good) we weighed anchor and were on our way to Shroud by 10:00. The run to Shroud was short and we arrived a little after 11:00. The weather forecast had indicated winds out of the NE so we tried to tuck into shore on the south end of the Cay to mitigate any wave action. We had arrived mid-tide and anchored in what we thought would be deep enough water for low tide. We went out exploring in the dinghy for awhile, then decided to come back to the boat, have lunch, and do some kayaking. Once on the boat we checked our depth and found that we only had 1.5 feet under our keel, with about 1 ½ hours until low tide. We checked the charts and decided we’d probably be agound at low tide. (We’re having an exceptionally low tide). Oooops, poor planning on our part. After a quick lunch we weighed anchor and decided to head to Norman’s Cay.

Upon arrival at Norman’s we first entered the Norman’s Cay Cut anchorage and motored around looking for a good spot. It was basically empty with only a couple of boats in the anchorage. However, we finally decided to go back out and anchor on the west side where we’d anchored during our first visit.

We had a quiet but somewhat bouncy evening at anchor and Linda prepared a pot roast in the pressure cooker. Gerry rated it as fantastic.

2/20 – After our bouncy anchorage last night, we decided to move to the inside anchorage. We drove around the harbor for awhile looking for a place with enough depth and a sandy bottom. After deciding on a spot we dropped the anchor and settled in.

While it was still relatively high tide, we decided to explore the inner area of Norman’s up by what is described as the Pond area. During our last visit this was the location where we ran aground in our dinghy and then while trying to get it out, Gerry sunk in the sand. We made it all the way up and back out without any mishaps. However, we’ll probably explore again tomorrow during high tide.

After a quick lunch, we landed the dinghy ashore and walked over to McDuffs. We had a quick drink, checked out their menu for a possible dinner reservation, but decided against that because of the prices (we’d had an $18.00 burger when we were here before and decided that was sufficient for our McDuffs experience.)

Back at the boat we checked our anchor again and found that it really wasn’t set very well (it had been marginal, but acceptable when we’d first checked it). As a matter of fact, now it looked like it was just resting on the bottom without any fluke dug in. Evidentially, as the tide changed, it had pulled out. We decided to pick up and move to a different spot. With that accomplished, we put the kayaks in the water and paddled over to the small island across from our anchorage. We were going to paddle across to another beach area, but the tide had changed and the current ended up being stronger than what we wanted to deal with – we were paddling hard without making much forward progress, so we went back to the boat.

For dinner, Linda experimented with some of the “canned” meat we had bought. We bought this as “reserve” food, and even though we still had a lot of meat in our freezer, we decided to give it a try. We had chicken enchiladas which were pretty darn good.



Sunrise at Hawksbill Cay.  We probably post way too
many sunrises and sunsets, but there is really something special
about these Mother Nature events on a boat.  A great
beginning and ending to the day.



Arriving at Shroud Cay

We've mentioned reefs a lot in the blog.  They're
definitely something you don't want to hit.  In the
dinghy in shallow water they're pretty
easy to spot.  That's not always the case in deeper water
when we're trying to make our way in or out of an anchorage.

This is Little Pigeon Cay, a small privately owned island across
from Shroud Cay.  At the left is a small sea plane either the owners
or guests flew in on while we were at Shroud.

Monk's Vineyard at anchor at Shroud (which proved to be too shallow)

We encountered mangroves while we were exploring the
shallows at Norman's Cay

Small boats along the shoreline as we explored Norman's.

More of the shoreline at Norman's

At low tide, a lot of the conch are exposed.  Here
are a bunch of baby conch.

This is the small island right across from where we
were anchored at Norman's

... and here is Gerry relaxing a bit on the island under the palm tree

Our mode of transportation for the afternoon

Gerry paddling hard, but going nowhere fast, because
of the current

Sunset at Norman's - another nice ending to the day