Early in the morning two boats bumped into each other because the wind spun them around their anchors and they were parked to close to each other. It isn’t good when yachts bump into each other like that.
Today, 1/13/24, we picked up our anchor to move a couple of bays down to Key Bay, still on Peter Island. Because our boat swung around the anchor so much, it bent the pin in our bridle. This meant that I had a difficult time disconnecting it from the anchor chain. Steve had to come forward to pry it off with tools. Luckily Steve had the foresight to purchase several pins, so we have spares.
Key Bay is a quiet bay with only a couple of boats in it. We are anchored on a sandy bottom and the water is clear. There is one other boat in the anchorage. The anchorage itself is like a horseshoe and we are tucked in the corner of one side. The water here is very clear and we can see to the bottom in about 15 feet of water. Steve went snorkeling off of the boat to check the anchor’s holding and swam to shore. He saw a variety of fish and found a well-preserved conch shell.
On 1/14/24 we took the dinghy out and motored all along the shore. There were some coral heads in the water as well as some rocks. The beaches are mostly shells and rocks and are very rugged. We managed to pull the dinghy up on two different sides of the beach and walked around. We were the only ones exploring, which was amazing. We saw lots of different coral and shells washed up on shore. I picked up a sea shell that had a lot of orange on it. The shell itself isn’t great but I hadn’t seen one that color before. We also picked up a well-preserved, round, white tire-like sea urchin shell with five sets of bumps on it.
On one beach there was a small opening in the rocks where water bashed up against the sides. Luckily, this barrier protected us in the anchorage. Again, Steve went snorkeling off of the boat and saw many different schools of fish, including Blue Tangs, which have such a vibrant color.