Bob and Gail's Next Adventure: Manjack Cay and The Whale

We saw our first sting ray leaving the Black Sound. No picture of course Sad smile , but exciting, none the less.

The trip to Manjack Cay (pronounced munjock key) is a short one – just a couple of hours. It is a popular little island with lots of boats anchored out. There are no marinas – just a small number of private homes on a fairly large island.

The beach we dinghied over to seems to be privately owned but open to the public. This is the sign that greeted us.

And oh the chickens!!! We have seldom seen such chubby chickens!

Someone has lovingly kept up the trails in the area and posted signs directing us to the ocean beach. It is a mile walk in the humid air, but full of flora and some fauna (other than chickens).

Most of the signs were painted on palm husks.

Fan palm

There are many varieties and sizes of air plants. These grow on trees, but do not take any nutrients from the tree. The get all their nutrients from the moisture in the air.

We even saw cactus!

I call this my camouflage tree.

Talking about camouflage – can you see the hermit crab? He would scurry away then “put up his dukes” to fight us off. We did not fight back.

We’ve seen these flowers other places but have not identified them yet.

The soil is so sparse here, it is a wonder anything grows! It seems to be sprinkled lightly over the limestone. We must watch our step carefully on the trail due to roots and limestone sticking up everywhere.

We made it to the ocean! To the south it appears to be a cultivated garden with a beautiful variety of plants.

To the north is open beach. The water is an incredible blue green.

Next we took a dinghy ride through the mangroves to look for turtles. We saw several, but getting a picture is challenging

From Manjack we went south, past Green Turtle Cay and through “The Whale” This is an area where we must go out into the open Atlantic Ocean for a brief time as the inside passage is extremely shallow. Whale Cay is the island we must go around thus the name “The Whale” has been adopted as the term for transiting this area. Being the open ocean, this passage can be quite challenging so we wait for a a good “weather window” again. It was a gorgeous day and there was only a light swell, making for a great time to go. Blue Yonder III had also chosen that day to go and was only about 1/2 hour behind us.

This beautiful sailboat also crossed with us. Moonstone of Aberdour – London! That is Whale Cay in the background. You can just make out the waves crashing on the beach. Notice how calm the water is around them.