Rudder Cut & Cave Cay

 With a favorable wind forecast in the offing, we decided to spend a 2nd night at Rudder Cut Cay. We wanted to revisit the Atlantic beach and try to time a snorkeling adventure with slack tide which should be between 2:45 and 3:30.

In the morning, we went back over to the mangrove bay to check out an abandoned house we had previously seen. The road was really rough and, in places, nearly non-existent.

The house was just 1 room. We were puzzled as to why they would have had a dryer. In this climate, it would be easier to just hang your clothes out and not waste precious electricity.

After some beach combing, we headed back to the boat to get our snorkel gear and travel a couple of miles to the deep cut. We had read where the snorkeling was great. 

On the way, we passed this kewl cave. Notice how clear the water is!

The snorkeling at Rudder Cut was spectacular! Unfortunately, our dive camera died so we can't share the underwater pictures with you. Bummer!

A pair of osprey had a nest on this unusual rock sitting in the middle of the channel.

Though Jim didn't have any luck spearfishing, Carol found a beautifully colored conch. In the 2nd picture, notice his 2 little eyes poking out & looking at us.

We wanted to keep this lovely shell intact so we froze the conch overnight. The next day, Jim was finally able to extricate the conch. It's a disgusting job to remove the meat this way. Notice the long strings of slime! It just kept coming!

Once he is removed from his shell, the most difficult part is skinning it. Locals use their teeth. Jim used a box cutter & needle nose pliers. Below is the final piece of meat before Carol tenderizes (cracks) it.

After we returned to the boat from snorkeling, Jim went fishing along a rock wall & caught a couple of nice fish. One was a gorgeous queen trigger fish. We aren't too sure what the other was but it looked like it might be in the sea bass or grunt family. They both had great filets!

Wednesday morning, we timed our departure from the Rudder Cut Cay anchorage to be nearly high tide as the water we had to traverse was pretty skinny! On the way to Cave Cay, we passed David Copperfield's private island. This is one of the cute guest cottages & thatched hut.

Again today, finding a spot to drop the hook where it isn't sooo rocky due to the ocean swells was our primary concern. Our 4th option was the one we chose. This is the view looking out our back door.

The little beach right in front of the boat was chock full of shells! Carol had a great time picking out some of the best of them.

While dinghy exploring we found what might be the reason they call this Cave Cay. There were quite a few sea turtles swimming around in the cave!

Tonight we saw an unusually bright and long "green flash". Woo hoo. Though you can't see it in this picture, it happened a millisecond after the shutter went off.