We have had two days of beautiful sailing weather. On Thursday we sailed about 25 miles from Great Sale to Allen's Pensacola Cay. Today, February 10th, we sailed another 20+ miles to Manjack Cay. Each sail was one long starboard reach (our fastest point of sail) with a good breeze that kept Nimue skimming along under sunny skies. The water on the banks as clear as ever and sparkling green. Around four o'clock we anchored at our destination and set up the dinghy for a trip to shore. We wanted to walk across Allen's Cay to the ocean beach to see if our boat card was still posted in an old water bottle at the signing tree on the beach.
The signing tree is a place where visiting cruisers leave a memento, usually their boat name carved on a piece of driftwood or an old float, or a boat card in a bottle tied with a piece of drift rope on a prominent tree. Our memento was gone and so was quite a bit of the beach! One of the summer storms that passed by this area took a good chunk of this secluded sandy shore out to sea and left huge piles of drying turtle grass and a rocky limestone beach in its place. There must have been quite a bit of drift junk left behind as well, because the "signing" activity has spread from one tree near the path to several trees along the beach. The effect isn't quite the same. What should be a single quirky reminder of happy sailing memories has turned into a sad commentary on how much junk is out there on the water. 
No comments:
Post a Comment