Our next destination was Flamingo Cay, which is about 30nm to the north. It was a pretty rough ride with fairly high seas blowing from the east. Man O’ War channel is notorious for being rough in strong easterly winds, and it definitely lived up to it’s reputation. Because of the sea state, we decided to take the outside route (western route) past Man O’ War Cay. The previous year we took the eastern route through the narrow channel between the rocks, but this time it was just too rough to attempt.
The cave at Flamingo Cay was a welcome site as we approached and anchored around 4pm. The northern bay which is indicated on the charts as “Two Palms” (which I still haven’t seen) had two boats, so we decided to anchor near the Cave where there was one other boat. The anchorage was very comfortable and we didn’t feel the need to go ashore just yet.
The local fishermen’s big boat was anchored a ways off shore and their two smaller boats ran to the fishing grounds in the morning and then returned late in the afternoon when the catch of the day was cleaned and then put in freezers run off generators. We were expecting another blow and they told us that their freezers were almost full and that they will be leaving for home, which is Long Island, after the strong winds die down a bit.
The trail that starts on the northern corner of the “Two Palm” bay, leads past very interesting inland ponds that are full of very brightly colored pink/red shrimp and one even looks as though it could be a small blue hole. The trail opens up to the northern bight with a spectacular beach and amazing turquois water as a result of the shallow sandy bottom.
A dinghy can fit into the cave in the bay, but the weather was definitely not settled enough to attempt that. We chose to rather try and climb over top of the rocks, but that also became a bit treacherous and we turned back and rather walked over to the pond which is fairly large with all kinds of water birds residing there.
While we were waiting for the weather to change, we dinghied over to the fishermen and discovered to our delight that it was the same boat with the same crew that we met the previous year. It was almost like a long lost friendship rekindled again. We noticed that they had a big crate with trigger fish and when we asked about it, they told us that it was really good eating fish. Well, as soon as we arrived back at the boat, I took out the fillet of a large barracuda that we caught on the way and which I took a piece from as bait, and baited up my fishing pole and just dropped it over the side of the boat – not really expecting anything to happen. To my delight and surprise I caught two decent sized trigger fish in very quick succession and we had a delicious fresh fish meal on the table within the hour of catching it.
The winds finally changed to a favorable direction and acceptable speed after about four days at Flamingo Cay. Every moment was thoroughly enjoyed and every corner that was possible to reach was explored, so we were content to move on to the next destination.