After a good nights rest upon arrival in The Hobbies, we're enjoying being on the reef. If you look east from where we are sitting, the first land you'd see is the island of Guadaloupe (in the Eastern Caribbean). There is nothing but Caribbean Sea for 1250 miles. It's amazing that the reef out there can keep that much water at bay! There is a steady breeze keeping the wind generator humming and the temperatures perfect. The sun is out most of the time, but cloud cover comes regularly - again great for temperature control. We've had a few squalls at night with some rain and heavier wind which puts a little chop in the water - but it's still very comfortable.
The best part about these remote places is the sky at night. There is no light pollution except for our anchor light. And why we keep it on in here is questionable - there's no traffic over the reef! Last night staring at the stars, there were bright flashes every so often. So we decided that aliens were taking flash pictures. Perhaps we should write an article for the National Enquirer and make some cash to stay out here longer!! If we could only get our hands on the negatives! Too much sun? Too much salt water? Perhaps!
Bottom line, the sky is remarkable at night and the distant squalls put on quite a light show over mainland Honduras.
Yesterday was a hunting day for Michael. He went out snorkeling twice in search of dinner. We went to one far reef and saw lots of big fish - he claimed he saw a dog snapper as big as Barbara. He would have lost his spear for sure if he shot that thing. We came home with a lobster. The reefs are interesting - lots of fish - but the coral structure isn't as pretty. A lot of stag horn coral and quite a bit of silt/algae on the rocks. Barbara had an amazing ray encounter. She was watching one giant southern stingray work the bottom like a giant hoover vacuum, and an eagle ray came right up to her, arms length away, face to face. It was bigger than her and beautiful. Then it just hung around for awhile swimming around. The eagle rays are usually quite shy so this was interesting. Michael saw a huge tarpon that came in for a close swim-by. There were a couple of very large porcupine fish. These funky, big eyed, burred critters are often seen inside holes - but these were out swimming (which is a funny sight because of their fins and roundish shape).
We joined our friends on "Ivory Moon" for sundowners and yummy snacks and called it an early night. Michael was "net-control" yesterday for the Northwest Caribbean net and he was booming into Colombia, Panama, Cuba as well as the Belize/Honduras are. It's good to know our radio works so well.
A fishing boat came into the reef later in the day and stay anchored nearby at night. Perhaps they'll deliver us some fresh fish!
Weather is supposed to be bad for the next week or so - squalls, tropical waves and some rain, so we'll stay here. We might try a few places in this area - it is pretty large. But for now, it's nice to be safely anchored with nice snorkeling nearby. The rain will allow for some good deck and hull cleaning as well as some interior projects.
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