Motor sailing for lack of wind, we arrived at what is generally known as Devil’s-Hoffman. Several tiny cays (hope you are pronouncing this “key”) are closely scattered between the two larger ones. We planned to anchor in the lee of White Cay off its pretty sandy beach in plenty of water; plan B was behind Saddleback or Fowl Cay. In the Bahamas, much of what we take for granted in our east coast cruising is a bit sketchy. Charting is not as extensive or as up-to-date and depths may not agree to the chart – paper or electronic.  Any wonder that the first page of the Explorer Chart book provides excellent photographic examples of how to read the water along with advice to have enough sun overhead to do so, especially when close to land.

White Cay was filled with depth hogging monos and Saddleback was quickly crossed off the chart as an anchoring spot when even we, with 3 ft draft touched bottom- just one hull though. Fowl Cay on the other hand had plenty of water, 11-15 ft where the chart indicated seven. We make notes on the chart and in the guides as we go. This placed us within 120 ft of Hoffman and a shorter dinghy ride to the second beach where we’d find the path that leads to a blue hole. For those unfamiliar with a blue hole, as we were, this one’s story reads like this: a round, salt-water hole about the size of a baseball infield. It connects to the ocean near the bottom of its 600 ft depth. (no anchoring for monohulls though). Explored by Jacques Cousteau, it is thought to have been formed by a natural cataclysm. I’d rule out a sinkhole that sank since the entire island is rock.

Happy Bunting hangs out at Hoffman Cay Beach

The path ends right at the edge of the overhanging rock platform and as you look down, no way is that jump only 25 ft. Scoot down the tiny path at the edge to water level. Look up and declare, “oh, that’s not bad at all.” From above, the 25ft appears more like 50, while from below it seems more like 20ft.  Benj can attest to a screamin’, exhilarating 25 ft jump that feels like 50! Russ remained in the “not brave adult” group and me- what else, I could barely look down and remained a dry photographer of the blue hole swim and float outing.

Blue Hole as seen from above

Yes! A perfect jump by the brave one

Tuesday afternoon we explored White Cay; sandy beach on the west side, rock cliffs and outcroppings on the east. We picked up a handful of sea glass, an intact sea biscuit and made faces looking at the strange gelatin-glob creatures nestled in the rock crannies; they were the aquatic equivalent to a Venus Fly Trap. As we walked along the beach to collect our stuff and thus the lonely camera, a small terrier who’d been brought ashore was barking like crazy. Took a second to realize that he was doing a couple rounds with a crab he’d dug out of its hole; the crab clearly had the upper hand- claw and finally escaped into the water. By that time I’d grabbed the camera and managed to get a couple of in-water shots.

Saturday we tossed off the mooring lines and jumped back on the ICW headed toward a nifty protected basin named Manatee Pocket in Port Salerno.  The appropriate name could be more along the lines of SportFish Haven. Tom and Chris on Polar Pacer told us of the spot, about ½ mile off the waterway just north of the St Lucie inlet. They were anchored when we arrived. On the way we turned our eyes north at 10:02 a.m. to catch the Mars Rover shooting across the sky.

The spot is nearly perfect as long your boat doesn’t draw more than 5 ft. The channels which lead in from the ICW are plenty deep but the two anchoring areas are what keep most away and those who fit are happy with the lack of competition. A short walk in took us to Green Apple Produce, an ethnic market with all kinds of fruit and veggies, including long stalks of sugar cane. Across the street we found a well stocked seafood market and with that completed our shopping; happily in lieu of contributing to Winn Dixie.  Please don’t cringe when I say we ate grilled Dolphin for dinner; it was the fish not the mammal. Mild and reminiscent of Grouper in texture, Russ gave it a thumbs up while I was more non-committal.

Colorful shops at Finz, Port Salerno

Funky FL style at Shrimpers

The waterfront, as you might expect, was filled with restaurants, outdoor patio and tiki bars as well as a few shops where looking is all you can afford. Sunday night we enjoyed a yummy shrimp dinner special at Shrimpers, with protected outdoor dining. Russ was happy that our table was in view of the dinghy. Before dinner we gathered with two other boats aboard Polar Pacer. I love these get-togethers; often spontaneous and a chance to meet and make new friends. This one went down thus: we’d planned to go to dinner by 5:30. At 4 Tom calls on the VHF to say they’d invited Sail Away and Unabated for happy hour and would we like to join?  You bet.

We met Christine and Ken of Sail Away. Christine, with a lovely French Canadian accent described Ken as “the Captain of the ship, not of my heart.” She is crew and hopes one day to own her own boat. First, she wants to learn how things work and see if the lifestyle is a good as she imagines. Way to go girl. Shortly past 5 o’clock we saw an awful sight; an osprey on top of our mast, perched on the Garmin wind indicator. Visions of summer ’10 when we lost our Davis wind instruments to a determined cormorant spurred us into action as we bid a hasty farewell and zoomed the 120 ft to dislodge “Mr. looking for dinner” from his lofty perch. I guess our tall mast offered a great water view as the osprey returned several times until finally as sunset loomed he stopped and allowed us to go eat.

Monday morning all of us except Sail Away planned to head off. We and Unabated to Lake Worthless near the inlet while Polar Pacer would stop at Peck Lake and Hobe Sound for a couple days before they too would end up in the north end of Lake Worth. We hadn’t been awake more than a few minutes when we heard a sound Russ described as “a comb falling off the shelf”. If only. Any guesses? How about the Garmin wind indicator; plastic and a foot long- you’d be right if you guessed that item. It didn’t look broken, so now we only had to get it back on. Lucky for Russ we knew that Tom was a mast climber. Up he went, easy as pie and pushed that silly thing back into place.  Crisis averted.  Wrong. Five minutes after Tom was back on Polar Pacer, the darn thing fell again. Big groan. Plan B is to order another- wait, make that two- ship to Marathon and we’ll find some other kind soul to install it.

UP THE MAST ... WITH A WIND PADDLE