My mom’s birthday is today. She’s just three years away from being on the “Today Show” with Willard Scott saying, “Here’s Ruth Wick from Duluth. She’s 100 years old today. She likes to play cards, bake cookies, read books with her book club, exercise, and send e-mail to friends and family. Isn’t she a lovely woman?!” The photo above was taken last summer at her “Independent Living” apartment. We were in Minnesota to pick up our car and bring it back to Charleston for the hurricane season. I hope I look half as good and am half as healthy as she is if/when I am 97 years old. Actually, I’d like to be as healthy right now as my mom. She takes medicine for low potassium and high cholesterol, and she’s only taken those for a few years. She’s never had a headache and is rarely sick with anything other than an occasional cold. Her mind is sharp, she’s kind and helpful to everyone, and she is a moral and very religious lady. She is truly an inspiration and a role model.
Today we left Staniel Cay and motor sailed for about an hour to near Sampson Cay. We are anchored between Tamarind Cay (Rat Cay) and “The Mice.” After we got organized, we went in the dinghy to check out some of coral heads we didn’t snorkel near last January. They are very nice, but the current was too strong. In the photo, Mark is using our “lookey bucket” (with a clear bottom) to look at the coral. If we go snorkeling tomorrow, we’ll have to go at slack tide which is between low and high tide when there is usually little current.
After investigating the coral, we went ashore on a beach. Daisy loves running on the beach and then going into the water to cool off. We only take her to beaches where there are no other people. Everywhere we stop in the Exumas there are always at least two or three choices of beaches within a short distance of our anchorage. Also, we always choose places to anchor where there aren’t many other boats. After playing on the beach for awhile, we walked on a trail over to the Exuma Sound side of Thomas Cay. We had been here before and it is one of our favorite beaches in the Exumas as there are crashing waves, dramatic coral formations, and also sandy beaches.
Once we got on the trail, Daisy remembered the way to the other side and lead the way. We actually “discovered” this trail when we were here last time and Mark used that beach to walk Daisy. He saw the trail and followed it to the other side of Thomas Cay. When we reached the beach on that side of the Cay, we climbed up on the trails to the cliffs overlooking the Sound. There is always a comfortable place to sit and look out at the water. Of course, that also means we get to rest a bit before the walk back.
After our pleasant walk, we returned to the dinghy and went back to the boat. When we got there we noticed that the boat was spinning around instead of facing directly into the wind like the other boats in the anchorage area.
We stayed in the dinghy and used the lookey bucket to find the anchor. We have 125 feet of chain out and we followed it to the anchor. That was when we discovered that a part of the chain was wrapped around a piece of coral. We either caught it while we were spinning, or we were spinning because the chain was wrapped around the coral. We put up with the slow spinning for awhile and then decided to turn the boat into the wind and pull back as our aft (back of boat) was facing into the wind - not a normal situation. That appears to have worked. It seems like the chain unwrapped itself as we are now pointing nicely into the wind. We know someone who had this same predicament and he had to dive down and unwrap the chain. Mark was not looking forward to that!
Photos of today’s walk are here.
