Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Hope Town, Elbow Cay, The Abacos

This morning was a snorkeling expedition – we visited a protected reef right off Sandy Cay, part of the Bahamas Underwater Marine Park and very popular. The reef is large and deep – if you surface dive, you can swim through “canyons” between coral heads that rise to the surface. The reef was teeming with life and many different kinds of coral. Among the most exciting things we saw were a huge spotted ray, a turtle swimming through the canyons, a nurse shark just hanging out and a huge grouper just ambling on by.

The afternoon was spent taking a 10 mile run up to Hope Town, a picturesque community and a sheltered harbor with its own candy striped lighthouse.

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Some sailboat’s keel was sitting on the bottom, next to our anchored boat in Sandy Cay. Hopefully this didn’t occur in a storm

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The nurse shark, hanging out in 15’ of water

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The spotted ray, on the left, was probably 6’ across – huge. The turtle, on the right was the size of a (very large) platter

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The turtle let me follow him, which usually doesn’t happen – it must have felt safe in the park

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Elk Coral – a rarity, there were huge stands of it in the park – conservation works!

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You try and take the picture and they just turn and swim away Smile

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Hope Town’s iconic lighthouse

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