Pelican Cays Land and Sea Park, Abaco

Today we moved a whopping 5 miles north from Little Harbour to a group of islands which are part of a protected sea park. We thought it would be a nice opportunity to do some snorkeling since there is a a big reef with dinghy moorings you can tie up to while you snorkel. The part of Abaco we are in has better snorkeling than we have seen in a while since we are on the Atlantic side of the island where all the reefs tend to form. Cruising Eleuthera and Cat Island, we were on the banks side which doesn't have reefs like this. Little Harbour had a big reef right near the anchorage where I (this is Kevin writing a rare post - soak it up) went on a spearfishing expedition yesterday with the younger couple we had met(Tom and Amy from Dreamcatcher) and their friends Don and Sandy from Adam Cara. Amanda got too much sun from the previous days travel so she stayed on the boat. Basically I snorkeled around for a few hours with a pointy stick and that's about it. Tom is pretty deadly with his spear and had nailed a few good sized fish in the first ten minutes, then I lost count. I was pretty happy just to not lose my spear. The spear is a Hawaiian sling which is a 5 foot pole with a sharp end and a loop of surgical tubing on the other end that you stretch to fire the spear. It only has a range of a few feet (in my hands anyway), and this was my first attempt at using it. I definitely need target practice. Even though I didn't catch anything, it was a pretty good snorkel and I saw a few big sea turtles and some huge parrotfish. I must have looked pretty good though swimming around with the spear cause most of the fish wouldn't come near me. I think that the fish that taste good must know they taste good, because they are the first ones to swim away and hide. The others just hang out taunting you, "Go ahead and eat me if you want, you'll regret it."

Anyway, back to today. The reef we snorkeled today is protected (like it even needs protection from the likes of me) so you can't take any fish. We dinghied over and tied up to a mooring near one of the reefs. As we got there another couple was leaving and they said to be careful that the current was pretty strong. They weren't kidding. We jumped in the water from the dinghy and I have no idea what the current actually was, but we could barely swim against it. We swam into the current to begin with (as they pound into your head during PADI dive certification) and only made it about 50 feet up the reef before we were totally exhausted and let the current carry us back to the dinghy. It was a really nice reef though with coral heads about 20' high and lots of fan coral. There were tons of fish including some huge groupers sitting on the bottom. We also saw a good sized barracuda which fortunately didn't hold a grudge against us.

Where we are:
Lat: N 26 24.035'
Long: W 76 59.790'