CAPT. MIKE IN THE EXUMAS DAY ELEVEN: NORMAN CAY

It's our last day or I should say morning in the Exumas. We have a chartered plane that will fly us back to Nassau at 12 noon from Norman Cay. So we will have to pack a few things in this morning starting with an early morning on the reef we discovered yesterday afternoon.
Even better is that when we dove on the reef this morning there was absolutely no current. Always nice when you can explore a reef while snorkeling at your leisure. As I was snorkeling close to the rock cay I discovered the keel of a shipwreck:

Seemed to be about 50 feet long and still had the engine and prop attached. I wondered how it ended up here? Was it put adrift during some hurricane? Or did it run aground onto the cay in the middle of the night in the hey day of drug running in the area? A mystery but, still neat to snorkel around:


After our early morning snorkel on the reef we found it was back in the dingy to head to the other side of Norman's Cay. There another wreck awaited us. In he late 1970's and early 1980's Norman's Cay was used by drug trafficker Carlos Lehder to ship illegal drugs to the U.S. from South America. He bought the island lengthened it's air strip and improved it's docks to facilitate the illegal activities. A brand new plane he had ordered was carrying a load of grass. Real grass as in sod to simulate a plane loaded with drugs and doing touch and go landings on the island's air strip. Something went wrong and the plane crashed onto the flats near the island. It is this plane wreck we are heading to for our final snorkel in the Exumas:


Two large Puffer Fish came out of hiding to greet me:


The plane is slowly disappearing but, it is still a neat snorkel when cruising through the Exumas:


Two great snorkels is how we ended our trip in the Exumas after which it was back to the Surprise pick up our bags and fly back to Nassau. It was a wonderful trip but, I was also eager to head back home because I wanted to get BIANKA ready for the upcoming sailing season. The fifth season since I installed electric propulsion  on board. So after eleven days in the Bahamas I was kind of singing this song:

SCENES FROM HURRICANE IRENE

Who needs to go to the movies?  Say Goodbye to Hollywood there is enough action right here as Hurricane Irene came up the east coast. Makes you appreciate the importance of chafe prevention and prepping the boat for even minimal Hurricanes/tropical storms. Let's start off with one of the early casualties of Irene. A couple who tried to "outrun" the Hurricane and got into a whole bunch of hurt off of Norfolk Virginia. Photos of the beached boat were posted on the Internet and their plight made it into a lot of papers from the local newspapers up to the Washington Post and CBS TV. Here is some video of what it was like before the boat hit the beach:




Meanwhile in Moorehead City. This boat had it's sails taken off but, still is was no match for Irene's fury:




  Some boats designed to sail fast will do so even with the sails furled. Until they hit the beach that is:





Hope these make you appreciate what your boat might go through in such storms I know it did for me.