The Cayos

We did an overnight sail to Cayo Cuervo with a good wind and got there for lunch. Just before entering the massive lagoon we asked one of the anchored prawn trawlers for some "camarones"...Si, no problem. We got together a couple of old shirts, a hat and half bottle of perfume and they were stoked. Filled a big basket up half way and I came up to his stern, Mark with the boat hook ready they passed him the bucket......crack the boat hook snapped in 2 places one under his arm, must have been more than 10 kilos that went swimming back in the sea:( Mark with a big graze under his arm but the fisherman wasn't too worried and started filling another bucket again and we had another go this time I came closer with no pole involved! Mark then went for a swim to retrieve the broken hook. These trawlers are all owned by the government and the crew just get a minimum wage so they are not to bothered at all about giving away the prawns in return for a gift and we went away happy peeling them madly.

We anchored on the north side of the lagoon in front of a little beach in 6m of water, beautifully protected. After lunch we went on the outside of the lagoon for a snorkel and came back with fish and lobster and this became the routine for the next few days, paradise. The snorkelling the best we have seen with loads of fish and really nice coral with a few nice little beaches we would have lunch time fish BBQs on. It helped that the weather was perfect each day so the visibility was really good. The first place since Chagos that we have had such good fishing, I don't think there are many places in the world left like this as it is closed for commercial fishing and no locals come out besides the prawn trawlers that fish out further and just come in to unload at the mother ship. Julie had the luck for snapper, the first time throwing out the lure with the 4 of us in the dinghy landing a very nice snapper no more than 40 seconds later. The next day Layla's turn but could only land Barracudas that are almost in plague proportion, it's not often you don't see one while snorkelling. Then again Julie landing 2 more snapper the day after done and dusted in 5 minutes, not bad at all;)

After 5 days for some reason we thought we should move on to Cayo Alcatracito. You are sheltered here inside the reef in about 4m of water but half a mile from the closest beach. The beaches look beautiful and are to some extent but the sand flies are unbelievable and also it is all sea grass so no clear spots for swimming. We also have a resident Barracuda that has stayed with us from the minute we arrived, he just won't leave staying at the bottom of our swim ladder. We have named him Barry and as big and scary as he is we have come quite attached to him as he is to us. He's a classic always lurking about, the other day we came back from snorkelling with a couple of fish, a grouper and a snapper. We threw him the skeleton of the snapper and after he watched it sink he brought it right up to us on the surface looking at us then bit the whole thing in half almost smiling like an ugly dog, unbelievable!! Then again the same thing with the grouper like a sign of appreciation he was definitely very happy with himself :)

The outside reef is where it's at, beautiful snorkelling with loads of fish although no lobster for some reason but that's ok as we have had enough of eating them anyway. It's been fish BBQs twice a day on Sunflower now and we are loving it, lazy days except for the card games that are getting quite serious. Another serious problem is we are low on mixers for the rum and the beer supply is dwindling very fast so today we planned to leave after 4 days but the weather has changed. Lots of rain squalls from the SSW so none of the other anchorages will be safe to get into in this weather. It's a little lumpy here on anchor but not too bad so far, hopefully tomorrow will be a bit nicer again but we haven't seen a forecast for nearly a couple of weeks now so who knows :)