Shroud Cay, Exumas, Part 4
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On this cruise, we did not have single side band, but we could often call a passing sailboat on VHF and get Herbs weather information. Recently, we installed an ssb rig. We also depended heavily on the satellite TV weather channel and the everpresent CNN.
So, information and the safety that it affords, is pretty much available all of the time and we are thankful for it.
Now, back to the next days cruise. The destination would be Shroud Cay about 10 or 12 miles to the south. As usual, I plotted our course and waypoints in the computer and printed a set of charts for Marv and I. Even though much of the time one can navigate by eyeball, we would always use the GPS when there were things to avoid like shallows, rocks, sand bores, etc. (Sand bores are not giant cousins of corn bores. They are immense heaps of sand that sometimes snake for many miles across the banks. Often they are exposed at low tide and look like a ghostly mirage.)
To get to Shroud Cay, we had to run west a couple of miles before turning south. The next few cays that we would be passing, Highborne Cay, Normans Cay and a dozen or so smaller cays had significant sand banks to avoid.
The weather was perfect and we made anchorage in the NW corner of the island group. Shroud Cay is actually made up of small cays divided by creeks and in the following days we spent lots of time exploring the creeks by dinghy. I should mention that only a few of the hundreds of cays in the Exumas are inhabited. Mostly, you can wander about unrestricted. But, times are changing and development in the Exumas is accelerating. We're really glad that we could experience it before the Sea Doos arrive.
Normally, we would anchor 50 to 100 yards off of a beach and in so doing
only rarely encountered no-see-ums or mosquitos. The daytime temperature at this time of year was in the low to mid eighties and in the evening it would drop to around 70 degrees. During the whole trip we had rain only 2 or 3 times. Outside of the fact that the sea water was a bit cool (72 - 74 degrees) for swimming we were well within our comfort zone.
Shroud Cay