Day 7

After our windy night at Cooper, we motored over to Salt to snorkel the Wreck of the Rhone. One of the good things about being early was that we had the place to ourselves. The downside was that we had never been there before and weren't sure where to go. We carefully motored into Lee bay and figured out which moorings we could tie off to. What threw us off was that we had been told to get a mooring and then dinghy over to the snorkel site. We could see the dinghy line from our mooring and it looked closer than we had thought it would be. We skipped the dinghy and just hopped in and swam to and from the site. The swim was no problem with fins. DH, DS11 and I snorkeled the site which was very interesting. DS14 stayed on the boat. At this point, we're not sure why we even paid for his plane ticket, for all he participated in the vacation.

We then packed it up and motored across the channel to spend the night at Marina Cay. DH wanted to put up the sails but since it was so windy still, and such a short distance, DS11 and I talked him out of it. I had read in the cruising guide that Marina Cay was sheltered in most weather. This sounded good to me! We motored there, identified the channel/reef markers, and were able to grab a mooring right off the dock. Note to mariners: the channel markers in the cruising guide are HUGE comparatively to the real thing. Likewise, the nav buoys here in Maine are large green and red "cans". The channel markers in the BVI's are, in reality, much smaller and only visible when you are closer to them. So they are there, you just can't see them until you are closer than you may be expecting.

Once we were settled on our mooring, we realized that Marina Cay was sheltered in terms of swells, but not so much in terms of wind. There was still a strong consistent wind throughout the anchorage. Oh well! We went ashore to pay for the mooring and walk around the island. We had a quick painkiller at Pusser's because, well, why wouldn't you? We went back to the boat to suit up for snorkeling the reef surrounding the Cay. Once in the water, DH and DS11 noticed that the best show was actually right under our boat. There were two nurse sharks and two large barracuda just hanging out under the keels of our cat - very cool! There was a strong current under the boats because the anchorage is actually in a channel. We made DS11 wear his fins in the water so he could effectively swim against the current. We snorkeled around the reef and saw some fish but the best was actually right in the channel under our boat.

The bar at the top of the hill had, guess what?, another Happy Arrgh! show. DS14 declined to attend this time so we left him behind. The happy hour entertainer was singing reggae tunes which were really nice to listen to while overlooking the boats in the anchorage.

DH went back to the boat to collect DS14 and then we had dinner in the restaurant at a table overlooking the reef. We had such an enjoyable evening, DH declared it his favorite meal of the week. (For me it was second only to Leverick.)

Back to the boat and another day came to a close.