South Caicos Island

South Caicos Island
Originally uploaded by S/V Raft.

Just as we approached East Caicos, Avalon V radioed over, asking us if we were fishing, because ahead of us were a flock of birds and a school of flying fish. We had been unsuccessfully dragging our lines from Georgetown to Rum Cay, but hadn't bothered with since. So out went the lines, after all it is Bev's ambition to catch a fish this year. But RAFT is a better fishcatcher than us. One of the flying fish decided to attack our boat and lost. After the picture we returned it to the beautiful indigo water. We could have kept it for bait, but Bev didn't want to deal with freezing it at this point. It was approaching happy hour time (1500) and we were still had over 10 miles to go.

Next sighting: dolphins playing off Phillips Reef. Ross at first thought they whales, because whales do migrate through the Turks passage at this time of year, but these were dolphins. We were still excited, because we hadn't seen dolphins since Georgetown, and always say they are good luck. Hopefully we would make Cockburn Harbour before dark.

1700 arrival at the harbour entrance, going due west into the sun, no not this time. A large dark cloud very conveniently covered the sun, but also included a squall with 15-20 knots of wind and rain. Doesn't the wind always pick up when it is time to anchor. Despite the squall we did find the harbour, was very easy to enter. The lighted buoys have been replaced to reflect Red Right Returning, and we followed Avalon V into a good sized anchorage, and set the anchor down, just as the sun went down. A little late according to Bruce Van Sant, but safely none the less.

We celebrated with Avalon 5, opening a bottle of champagne left over from the Christmas holidays. A fitting celebration, we had now completed our first 2 night crossing, were out of Georgetown and the Bahamas, and only 110 miles north of the Dominican Republic.

One quick toast, and we returned to RAFT for a well deserved night's rest.