Thanksgiving Samba Style

 With humble hearts we give thanks to our Great God for His blessings, His provisions and His amazing protection.

We'll come back to our Thanksgiving sojurn in a moment.

Thanksgiving morning, as soon as the sun was high enough to illuminate the shoals and rocks we had to traverse to enter the Little Bahama Bank, we headed out from our West End Old Bahama Bay marina slip. 

We left at 7:30 and dropped our anchor at 1:00, 50 miles later at Great Sale Cay. It was a spectacular day. No wind, flat water and a delightful ride. While on the Bahama Bank, the depth was, at most, 15 feet all day- - wow!

Great Sale Cay is a good sized, uninhabited island way out in the middle of nowhere. It is a frequent stop for mariners making their way to the Abaco island chain in the Bahamas. Once we dropped the anchor, Jim dove on it to make sure it was well set. He always gives Carol a big "O" to indicate it's OK.

As you can see from this panoramic shot, the anchorage is quite large and quite deserted. Just us with the next people maybe 30 miles away. Woo hoo! 2 other boats did show up after dark but were anchored maybe a mile from us.

As soon as the anchor was down, we headed off to explore a beach we saw on the other side of the island as we were coming in.

🖟

You can see Samba way off in the distance in this picture.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Notice the treasures we put in the heart to celebrate our Bahamas Thanksgiving!

2 Biscuits, 2 Turkey Wings & a Wish Bone in honor of Thanksgivin!!!!

Once back at the boat, we broke out the champagne & had a Thanksgiving toast..

Carol outdid herself with our Thanksgiving feast. Turkey & noodles, "real" mashed potatoes, corn, rolls and some freshly-made peanut-butter pie. Yum!

Friday morning, we headed 37 miles to Alans-Pensacola Cay. Once there, we dropped the anchor behind a couple of small rocky islands we hoped would shelter us from any incoming swells. The bow was pointed out to the ocean.

Then we headed ashore to find the "signing tree" - this is a special place boaters leave tokens of their trip here. We had left one with our family 6 years ago when we visited. We hoped to find our Samba sign.

The entrance to the trail is pretty unmistakable. Where do you suppose they found the Walmart sign???

The trail is NOT for the faint hearted. It began with a trip through a mangrove swamp and then through the jungle.

Notice all the flip flops!

The "signing tree" is pretty amazing. Boaters use whatever they can find to leave their mark. Unfortunately, many of the older signs like ours had been erased by hurricanes. Bummer.

The beautiful beach made the trip worth the effort!

We tried a 2nd trail to the other side of the island but decided it wasn't worth the effort. Jim had to remove a large plastic box that had blocked the exit of the trail. Carol decided she is definitely not a mountain goat!

This is her "I am NOT a mountain goat" pose from years ago on other "adventures".

After all the hiking, we cooled off in the water behind the boat. Ahhhh.

Tomorrow should be an easy trip to Powell's Cay. Stay tuned.