Sunday, February 26, 2023

April 26-27, 2022 Pineapple Cays and South Palmetto Point, Eleuthera

 4-26. We left Rock Sound about 10:00 to explore the west coast of Eleuthera.  We headed north and anchored at the Pineapple Cays about 4 hours later.  It was a beautiful day and we were able to sail most of the way.  We often use the engine if the wind isn’t in our favor.  This was a pretty anchorage with several little uninhabited islands in the bay.  We took the dinghy to check our anchor and to check out the snorkeling opportunities around the cays.  Then we checked out the shoreline to the north of our anchorage.  Pretty water and rock formations.

from our anchorage


 

 One other boat anchored in this bay.  We saw a family of 4 go to shore in the afternoon.  In the late afternoon, the dad and a daughter took off in the dinghy, anchored near one of the cays, and were back at the boat in about 30 minutes.  We figured they had been here before and knew the area.
 

4-27 The “settlement” was South Palmetto Point.  We didn’t think if was very big, but decided to go to shore and check it out.  The government dock was in disrepair, probably damaged by a hurricane.  So we took our dinghy to the beach.  We anchored it off shore and walked through the water to shore.  Often, if you beach it, waves will end up crashing inside the boat.  And depending on the tide, you have to wade out to it anyway or drag it off the beach and fight waves to launch it.  So we opt to get our feet wet and clean the sand off of them.
It’s not as easy as parking your car in the parking lot at the mall.  But it’s much prettier.


looking back to our anchorage from the shore

our dinghy anchored off shore

We walked up the one main road into town.  We came to a building with Thompson convenience store and a hair salon.  There were 2 older men sitting in chairs on the porch out front.  After introductions, very friendly people here and they like to visit before doing business, we went inside with Spencer.  His friend got up to leave in his nice pick up.  He told us that if there was something we needed that we couldn’t find here, he would give us a ride to a regular grocery store.  We thanked him, but we had just stocked the boat in Rock Sound and couldn’t think of anything we would need.  We ended up buying some crackers and canned juices, more as a way of supporting him vs out of necessity.  

 

It felt good to be off of the boat, so we decided to walk further.  There were a few houses and a few businesses sporadically situated along the road.  Once we met the Queen’s Highway, that runs the length of the island, there were a few more businesses.  We found Mate and Jenny’s restaurant that had been mentioned in reviews of this anchorage.  We decided to have lunch there.  We shared a small pizza, chicken wings and fries.  Their pizza was home made and very good.  The chicken wings were skimpy.  And they gave you a lot of fries.  We could have skipped the wings.  From here, we headed back to the beach and our boat.

as we walked inland, this was looking back towards shore

 

the road that continued inland

great photo of our dinghy when we returned

We switched gears and headed out snorkeling.  The one island we chose to snorkel by was Bird Cay.  It had a reef exposed to deeper water, so more growth.  We saw lots of large queen angelfish and grey angelfish, my favorites.  I found a couple sea biscuits near the boat.

We ended the day by making a rum punch with the fruit juices we bought from Spencer in town.

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