A Whale's Tale: The Jumentos: Water Cay

May 8 - May 9, 2007

Water Cay is a 45 mile trip north from Raccoon Cay, made especially delightful for us because of calm seas and clear skies, topped off with a school of dolphins jumping high out of the water rushing from our port side to ride our bow wake. I peer over the pulpit to see them turn on their sides to look up at me, wondering what they are thinking. A couple of them drop back to ride our starboard quarter wake. Ursa goes crazy when she hears them splash or breathe.

As we get close to Water Cay we are surprised by the different appearance of this cay compared to the others we have visited farther south: there are high white cliffs with sparse vegetation. We are relieved to see that the anchorage we had picked out using the information from our charts is vacant.

Prominent Rock

Right after we have the anchor set, a Bahamian fishing boat (a skiff from a mother ship) with 3 men aboard pulls up along side and asks if we have any water they can have. We tell them we don't have a watermaker and ask how much they need. To our relief they only want 2 gallons, which we are surely willing to give them, along with a bunch of granola bars for their afternoon snack. Another fishing boat pulls in to clean the day's catch of conch.

I was awakened at 12:15 a.m. to the sound of a boat motor and looked out the pilothouse window to see a boat approaching the island. I watched 2 skiffs leave the bigger boat and go towards shore. Kind of late to be cleaning conch if you ask me, and better yet for me not to ask them what they're doing. I'll leave that up to the guys with the Black Hawk helicopter.

Calm conditions at the time of our morning land tour allowed us to walk along the windward (oceanside) of the island.

Oceanside Cliffs

The shoreline right along the water's edge was rocky limestone, but not of the big boulder type terrain we had seen on the other islands. There were several blowholes, some quite a ways from the ocean's edge, so it was interesting seeing the waves come toward the shore and hear the water traveling in the tunnels beneath our feet and then come rushing out the blowhole with force making the water a foaming white spray.

Blowhole

One blowhole was set way up into the base of the sand-colored cliffs. The down slope from the hole was littered with millions of tiny (less than a quarter size) pieces of plastic of every color plastic comes in. This was caused by the long distance the water came from the ocean through the craggy limestone being pushed by tremendous force, and then being blown out of the hole up into the overhanging cliff, further pulverizing the plastic. Some pieces could be expelled from the hole area, but other pieces would fall right back into the hole to get further macerated

We delighted in being able to climb to the very top of the island and walk along its “spine”, taking in a 360 degree panoramic view standing still; the island is so narrow.

Spine of the Island

Southern Anchorage

It was an easy walk back down to sea level on the leeward side where we had left Fin in the glassy calm cove.

Residents

An afternoon snorkeling expedition provided adventure. Swimming in calm water 5-20' deep with unlimited visibility let me peak in on lots of underwater activities. I delighted in hovering over a gigantic school (500!) of southern sennet, an 18'' long rather thin fish resembling a barracuda. They hovered silently, just swimming in a large circle. They made me think of a giant underwater tumbleweed. When I would dive toward them, the circle would slowly open up and then close again when I was out of the way. I had never seen these before, and I always marvel at the diversity of life the sea contains. As many times and places I have been underwater it is never boring and there is always something new. I managed to sneak up on a green sea turtle laying on the bottom pulling something off a rock before it could see me, so I remained motionless to capture my own National Geographic moment. A queen angelfish darted in and out between the turtle's front legs, hoping to get some scraps. The bright purple and yellow hues of the fish starkly contrasted to the creamy ivory and dark brown of the turtle's reticulated skin, making them both beautiful in their own ways.

Seven remora had been hanging around under FLUKE, eating anything thrown into the water before the large barracuda that steadily circled the boat ever had a chance at even a bite. I named one of the remora Captain Hook because he had a hook sticking out of his mouth. He had lost a piece of flesh off the upper part of his lip, but it had healed and he was none the less of a remora for that injury. Besides, body piercings are the rage now, even in the Bahamas!