We had anchored the night before off of Belle Island Cay. This cay is privately owned by Aga Khan (who supposedly bought the entire cay for $100 million) so there was no going ashore, but there was great cell signal. By 10:30 am, we had set off in the dinghy and snorkeled the Cessna plane wreck lying in about 20 feet of water off nearby Pasture Cay and afterwards the Sea Aquarium off nearby of O’Brien’s Cay. The aquarium is an amazing experience as when we got in the water, dozens of Sargent majors about 4 inches long, came swimming right up to each of us and were everywhere we looked. Inches from your face, they were hoping we had some food but alas we had none, and so we swam on to see what other fish we could spot. Perhaps the most beautiful was a small 9 inch long lion fish whose delicate, flowing brown and white fins were fanned out as he hovered, occasionally showing signs of aggression towards the reef fish.
We moved Juno from her anchorage on the NW side of Belle Cay to an anchorage on the west side of Belle Cay in gin clear waters. From this location, we set off to snorkel some coral heads between Bells Cay and Cambridge Cay but there was a fair amount of current so we decided only one would snorkel at a time, drifting with the current while the other waited nearby in the dinghy. Sarah went first and saw beautiful corals with their fingers dancing in the flowing current but then caught sight of a shark which had her waving Harry over to be picked up asap. We think the sharks tend to populate cuts such as this one where deep ocean predators can gain ready access to the shallow banks. We then dinghied over to another drift snorkel location to the west of Cambridge Cay that had great fans and a sea turtle.
We returned to Juno with fingers and toes that looked like prunes but the gin clear water in which Juno was anchored beckoned us back in, this time wiping down the hull of some marine growth that had accumulated on her bottom and keel. The 42 feet on each side of her hull kept us busy for a while until it was time to relocate for the night to the same more protected anchorage on the NW side of Belle Cay where we had spent the previous evening.
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