Jan – Feb trip report - PART 4 –

Continuing from part 3, we had just been to the superbowl party at Leverick Bay, and now are spending our second night at Leverick Bay Marina. Things quieted down pretty quickly after the game over on shore, and once we were back over to the boat we were very tired from the day of renting the car / coper mine tour/snorkeling at baths / the stop at hog heaven, etc… We enjoyed another night in the slip, boat not rolling and moving around, very calm and quiet – as result we have another great nights rest and sleep in until about 9, really late for us.

A little breakfast on the boat, then we refill the water tanks (guage said we had used about 30% of our water so far but we top off anyway) and get an extra bag of ice. I mention the TTOL membership and the man working at the marina knows the deal, I think it was $35 per night. I highly recommend Leverick, and absolutely do not miss the dinner upstairs if you stay there.

So next we cast off the dock lines for a motor over to Drakes anchorage. I have always wanted to look around on Mosquito Island and see what is there. It is another perfect day, no clouds, good breeze. We drop anchor in sandy area in about 25 ft of water, an area located behind the reef, about 400 yds from the island. From the boat we can see some construction work happening on the east end of the island. I thought the place would be pretty much deserted, but there are activities on the island now. We hang out on the boat for awhile reading/ just being lazy.

After lunch we hop in the dingy and motor around the island to the western side, and check out the beach. This time I tie off the bow of the dinghy to a rock on shore and drop the dingy anchor off the back… the waves were rolling in a little, and this seemed like less work than dragging the boat up onto the sand only to risk some waves coming over the stern into the boat. We are the only people around and this has to be one of the nicest beaches we have ever been on, for any of the people here that read this, if you have been there, I am sure you will agree that this is just a really fantastic place to be.
[img][image]http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/b602/photo7256/photobeachlarge_zpsad341ff5.jpg[/img][/image]
Here is a picture we took at this beach

I think it is called honeymoon beach, but I am not sure. There is a little outdoor bbq area near the beach, we found a nice place near there, in the shade of the palm trees, and watched several boats negotiate the Anguilla cut. While we were there, we saw a pretty large barge work its way through there, I was surprised it could make it.

Next, I had snorkel gear with us, so we just took the dingy back around past where we anchored the sailboat and on over much closter to Colquhoun Reef, then anchor the dingy in about 3 or 4 ft of water and I jump in. I decide to snorkel around a little myself, while admiral hangs out in the dingy with her big floppy hat and a book to read. I stay nearby the dingy though, basically snorkeling northward a few hundred feet toward the big rock at the edge of the channel. Water depth here is maybe 8 to 12 ft. I see some big coral heads, maybe 10 or 15 ft in diameter, some of the coral heads have a big hollow spot inside the top where there are all these little yellow fish, about 5 or 6 inches long, just kind of swimming around inside the top of the coral head. I need a fish identifier book next time. There is a little current flowing though here too. After about a half hour of this we are ready to get back over to the sailboat to relax for awhile.

Next, we just motor the sailboat over to Saba Rock with plans to spend the night there. We pick up a ball and since it is still at least 2 hours before dark we again hop in the dingy and just motor over to see the mega yachts across the bay near Biras Creek, on up towards Biras Creek and then we stop in at BEYC. There we check out some of the shops, pick up a couple of tee shirts, etc… BEYC always seems the same every time we have been there, but this is good thing I suppose. We continue our circuit on over to Saba Rock, to check out the dinner menu and they run their drink specials from 4 to 6. We asked if we need to make dinner reservations, they advise not necessary, just come back over for dinner whenever we are ready…

Then Back to boat to see if the bullet blender still works (it does) and time for sundowners and to rest up and gather our strength for dinner, ha ha. We have never had dinner at Saba Rock, and we decide to try it this time. I try the Anagada Lobster, admiral has the salad bar with grilled chicken, she said the salad bar was really good and I enjoyed the lobster. Again, the service was good. We got a wifi signal there, so we sent some messages back home, our oldest now freshman in college was able to see us on the Saba Rock web cam, so we were excited about that.

After another long day of activity -- back to the boat to read a little and just be lazy, I think we were back on the boat by 9:30 and settled in for the night. Water was calm, no rolling, and quiet, the way we like it. We are getting settled into this routine very nicely now, is this a dream?

I will finish out the trip with part 5 - to be continued later ----