May 18-19, 2022 Current Cut and snorkeling

5-18 We decided to move the boat to Current Island.  We have been wanting to snorkel the southern tip of the island.  Years ago, a local told me that’s where he goes to get conch to sell to restaurants.  We waited for squalls to pass before leaving at 12:30.  That put us at the Current Cut a little later than we had planned.  You always have to check tide and current to pass through this cut.  The best time is 2 hours after high tide in Nassau.  It was now 4 hours after high tide at 1:45pm.  We were against the current entering at about 6-7kn and the current slowed us down to 3 kn.  Dave even had to increase our rpm’s to stay at 3kn.  We had come up to 5 kn after we were through the cut and by the time we turned right to our anchorage.  We went just a ways south to Little Bay on Current Island.  We spent a couple hours snorkeling the walls along the coast of the island.  We saw a few grouper and some small conch.  This was the first conch we’ve seen this year, which was promising.  

entering Current Cut

shoreline of Little Bay on Current Island

beautiful water

grouper peeking out from ridge

school of fish along the coral

small school of fish by coral head

 

you can see where the boat has been cleaned

Dave climbing the ladder back onto our boat

5-19 We packed a lunch and took the dinghy around the southern tip of Current Island and to the other side where there were a couple islands off shore, Pimlico islands,  and shallow areas between the islands.  It was a long rough ride in the dinghy.  We went to a beach for lunch and checked out the waters off of the beach.  

the beach we headed for

 

I found several piles of conch shells underwater where the conch had been removed by commercial fishermen.  We call them conch graveyards.  That meant they were plentiful in this area.  Now to find them. 

"conch graveyard"

There was a current heading north along the island.  So we snorkeled aways with the current and walked back on the beach.   

 

interesting grassy area

 

Then we took the dinghy and snorkeled hanging onto it while it floated along with us.  I found a Helmut conch and decided to keep it for the shell, the meat isn’t as good as the queen conch.  We found a couple lion fish, so Dave went after them.  I got in the dinghy to keep it in the area, not float with the current.  He was happy with getting one, and tired, so we headed back to the boat staying on this side of the island. 

 

 

the spines are poisonous

The ride was calmer, less wind, but we had to go through current cut in the dinghy to get back to the boat.  It was no problem.  I think it’s because we ride on top of the water and aren’t as affected by the current.

Back at the boat, the wind was blowing us towards shore.  So we decided to move to the other side of Current island for better protection.  Here we go through the Current Cut again.  Low tide in Nassau was at 6:00pm.  We entered at 5:30 traveling east to west with the current.  We started at 6.2kn and increased to 8.9kn in the cut.  It probably wasn’t ideal timing, but we made it.  We anchored north of the cut in much calmer weather.
Dave had removed the poisonous spines of the lion fish before we left the snorkeling area.  Since we only had one, we made ceviche, which was delicious.