Spanish Cay
                                                                                          

    

      Another 50 mile day (that makes 100 miles in 2 days) and we are at Spanish Cay.  We had the entire island to ourselves!! It is a private island with one owner, 6 houses (empty) on it and a marina open to the public.  We were there 2 nights and only one boat stayed at the marina with us one of the nights. The island was developed 50 years ago by the original owner of the Dallas Cowboys and used for personal and business entertainment (lots of celebrities have stayed here).  Fifteen years ago it was sold.  The new owner has had 5 wives and the beaches have changed names  5 times. It is about 2 1/2 miles long by 1/2 mile wide. They have their own water treatment plant, power generating station,  airplane runway, restaurant/bar, pool, tennis courts. The marina managers offered to make us dinner in the restaurant but we declined as we were the only ones eating.
                                                         

                                                         

Workers leaving on the ferry boat

You could never build this in the US!  This was a bar, now 

abandoned after the 2005 hurricane damaged it.  The tide comes in all the way around it.  

Wrecker's Bar

The starfish was alive and 14 inches in diameter.

The house stairs end in the water.

There were so many great shells  on the beach.  Heaven for me!  It was obvioius the the beaches hadn't had anyone  there for a couple of months.  There was also so much plastic trash it was unbelievable. We collected 4 black hefty bags full.  We now carry  big trash bags along with a bag for shells when at the beach.  I don't collect any live shells (though I get lots that aren't living!) and move the ones that are out of the tide zone back into the water.  We are leaving the beaches better than when we came! 

Spanish Marina office

    We had 2 bad nights there with 25 kt north winds and a high tide. It is a north facing marina and the breakwater is falling apart so the water goes over the top.  The second night it was so bad when Bill  checked the boat in the middle of the night one line had worn half way through in 9 hours just from  rubbing around the piling. The cleat held, the piling was bending.   We had 4 lines out.  He double tied everything so there were 8 lines.  The boat was moving up and down, back and forth  and so extreme that he almost didn't get back on the boat.  He  seriously contemplated sleeping in an outside chair at the marina office.  Most amazing is at that point I was asleep and didn't even know he couldn't get back on the boat.  He insisted we stay in a different marina at a slip the next day as he had little sleep for 3 nights now with the wind/anchoring issues.  On land the next day it was the first time  we have felt the land rocking, it was that bad.

 This was a good line that wore through in 9 hrs. trying to hold boat in the wind.