Snorkeling and Beach Combing on Moraine Cay

Awoke to a possible day for leaving but wanting to eek out another day in the Bahamas, we decided we’d head back to the USA tomorrow giving us one final day to enjoy the Bahamas.  But we couldn’t go far as we needed to position ourselves such that we’d be close to one of cuts through the 100 mile long reef surrounding the Abacos - and Mrraine Cay/ Moraine Cay Cut provided just this and supposedly great snorkeling . So we motored the 2 miles east to Moraine Cay and were in the water snorkeling a great reef close to shore by 10 am.  We started shallow in about 6 feet of water and swam east encountering large coral formations as depths increased to about 20 feet until we got to the reef’s edge where we encountered a massive (four foot long, 6 inches in diameter) barracuda who followed us quite closely while we swam away so as to avoid any confrontations. The water was a bit cloudy from the wave action but we definitely liked this reef a lot. We did some beach combing on the small cay that had three bungalows for rent but which were unoccupied finding a pile of beautiful conch shells and returned to Juno for lunch. Around 3 pm, we set out for another snorkel but the tide had run out and breaking waves on the reef we’d snorkeled in the morning made it too difficult to anchor the dinghy so ended up anchoring the dinghy closer to Juno and snorkeled a small cay west of the reef and breaking waves.  This turned out to be a good stop as we saw many fish escaping the breaking waves.  Then we decided to try snorkeling one last time at the northern side of Moraine cay anchoring in about 25 feet of water and found a huge coral formation but not many fish - perhaps too rough. We so enjoyed our final day, that it was close to 6 pm when we got back aboard Juno and decided we be more comfortable back at Allens-Penscola given the NE winds so we sailed east, dropping anchor around 7:45 as the sun was setting.  With plans to leave tomorrow for the USA, we didn’t get to bed until midnight getting things ready so we could leave first thing.