Manjack Cay

5/8/21

We woke up this morning to a quiet anchorage at Powell Cay, and are planning a short transit to Manjack (pronounced MUNjack) Cay, so we don’t need to leave very early.  We decided to launch our new dinghy and go for a ride ashore.  Sinbad hasn’t had a chance to run and play for several days, so this was a good chance.

Our dinghy is stored on the upper deck.  To launch it we use a crane to lift it, then manually swing it out over the side of the big boat, and then lower it to the water.  It isn’t a difficult job, but it takes 15 minutes or so to get everything ready and go through the motions. 

After going ashore on Powell Cay we beached the dinghy as you can see in the background of the first photo below.  Sinbad had a good romp up and down the uninhabited beach, chasing birds and digging in the sand.  Several times he ran out into the water to chase a bird and surprised himself when it got to his chest quickly.  We haven’t taught him to swim or enjoy the water for fear he will like it too much.  After an hour on the beach he was ready to go back to the boat.

After getting Sinbad back aboard the big boat he was glassy-eyed the rest of the day, sleeping most of the time.  That was a fun excursion for him and us.

We then moved to a large anchorage at Manjack Cay.  This is an inhabited but privately owned island.  The inhabitants welcome visitors to walk the trails, but they ask that dogs are kept on a leash.  Many people have free ranging chickens on this island, as they do on most of the inhabited islands, and they don’t appreciate it if a dog kills their chicken.  We didn’t go ashore here.  A view of the anchorage is shown below.

After the sun set in the evening I was able to see the planet Mercury.  It isn’t often that it is visible, but it was clearly so this evening.  This is the first time I am certain I saw Mercury.