Maria Island

After writing yesterday’s blog we were approached by the one other boat in our anchorage – Brad who was captaining a 60 odd foot monohull called Blue Whale. He needed some help undoing a couple of screws and I was more than happy to oblige. He’s been a professional captain in the islands for a few years now. Apart from helping undo two screws we had a good chat about the islands and a show around the boat. Brad also gave me the coordinates of a good anchorage in Tobago Cays away from where everyone else goes. We must give this a go in a week or two. Before parting we invited Brad over to Dignity to have a look around.

This morning around 9am we set sail just around the corner to Maria Island. Even though it wasn’t too far we decided to see if we could sail most of the way. We headed out into the Atlantic for 40 minutes then tacked back. With the wind dropping and quite a strong current we were heading back along our original track so we turned on the motor and made it there without too much faffing around. Approaching Maria Island we were tantalized by a streak of turquoise visible between the mainland and the island where we had to squeeze through the reefs. We found the cut in the reefs quite easily and kept in 60 feet of water until we were clear of the breakers around us. We turned into Maria Island and, sheltered from the ocean, dropped our anchor in her lee.

As we ate lunch Bees Knees, who we’d been in contact in the morning, rounded the corner, came through the cut and anchored next to us. We are the only two boats around here which is great.

This afternoon I dusted off the Hookah and scraped the barnacles off both hulls. The underwater bit takes two hours – double that when you consider all the gear prep and tidying. This evening Anne and Jim are coming over for a barbecue. I’m feeling hungry after this afternoon’s exertion.

FOOTNOTE: While here we noticed a couple wind kiting for some hours. We were later to learn that they were cruisers from “Nebula”.