Lee Stocking Island south to the Ragged Islands

 We stayed at Lee Stocking Island for 4 days, while a front passed through.  Spent time exploring on shore, and working again on our dodger.    Lee Stocking used to house a marine research center which is now abandoned.  

It is interesting to walk around the island and see all the abandoned equipment, supplies, and buildings.   It was probably more money to remove the items than to just leave them.

Ocean side view from Lee Stocking Island

Abandoned Airplane runway

Looked like a garage, workshop

Homes and buildings are spaced quite a ways apart on the island, so lots of work in roads was done at one time

Lots of abandoned aquariums.   It is nice to see that the glass is still intact on almost all of them.  Cruisers walk the grounds when visiting, but not into vandalism.  Hope it stays that way.

Charm at anchor

After the fronts passed through, we headed south to a small cay called Brigantine Cay to wait out some southerly winds, before heading south.  

Large sponge on the beach

Interesting rocky hole.  You can see how sharp the rocks here are.  Not a place you want to slip and fall.

We sailed south from Brigantine Cay with nice calm seas, beautiful downwind spinnaker sailing.  Took two days, and ended up in the Jumentos Islands, and Flamingo Cay

A book we have onboard that was written in 1997, stated there was the ruins of a house, dry well, burial ground, and a cave you could go in.  Kris wanted to find it, so we did some exploring ashore on Flamingo Cay.   Found the burial site, and either the cave or dry well, but it was full of water so could not go in.  Kris did find lots of cactus, and goatheads, mostly stuck into her foot as she was exploring in flip flops, but no serious damage.  Kris scoped out a likely trail with minimum brush, and Dean followed with the manchette to clear some of the trail.   

Large cactus.  Some of the smaller ones are hard to see until you step on or near them.  

Dry well, or cave entrance.  Full of water so don't know.

We also explored a large cave accessible by dinghy on the island.

From outside looking at entrance

Keep your head down

Inside the cave - holes in back and ceiling let in light

Coming out, keeping head down

The anchorage at Flamingo Cay, had quite a bit of surge, so we decided to head south, even though the winds were around 17 knots.  This was probably not the best decision, as once we got out, we found the winds were actually higher out of the protection of the islands.    We saw steady 22 knots, with gusts to 28 knots.   Not an unsafe ride, just bumpy, and got the boat covered in salt spray.   Unfortunately, we did not have the dodger complete yet, so the person at the helm got wet a couple of times.

Same sailing but taken from inside the boat, you can get a better feel for the action

Compare this to the downwind bank sailing we did in about 8 knots of wind.

After Flamingo Cay, we headed south to Buena Vista Cay,  spent the night, and then south again to Double Breasted Cay, where we are now.

Went for beach walk

And worked on the dodger.   The sewing machine blew a fuse, so might the last sewing for a while.

Dodger almost done.  We have the port side curtain, you can see, but no side curtain on starboard side yet.  We are short on material, and sewing machine blew a fuse.

Dean also took the time to make some bread.