We may be back in the US, but we still have a few Caribbean stories for ya…

So we left Allen/Leaf Cays (the place with all the iguanas) on May 18th and sailed north out of the Exuma Islands bound for Eleuthera. To get there, you have to cross “The Middle Ground”, a very shallow patch of ocean studded with numerous coral heads that you weave your way through.

Because it was shallow water, and the winds were light, we took less care stowing stuff away than we normally would for a fifty mile passage. We hoisted the “dink” (another name for dinghy, I don’t know why) up on its davits on the stern, and left all the dinghy stuff in it (like the air pump, the bailing pump, the locks, outboard engine oil, a few sponges, the seat, a milk crate).

The water was less than ten feet deep for miles and miles.

It was a pretty calm day (not giant swimming pool calm, but pretty calm).

Calm enough to have a cat nap…

So we were sailing along and there was a gust that heeled us over, causing part of the dinghy to catch in the water, causing one of the support straps to let go, causing the dinghy to flip over dumping all its contents into the water.

It looked like a huge marine yard sale. We lowered the sails and motored around for the next hour trying to pick it all up.

The locks and heavy stuff sank – obviously – the water was shallow and clear, but we still couldn’t find most of the sunken stuff. We’d hit the Man Overboard button on the GPS, and scanned the co-ordinates but no luck.

We managed to get all the floating stuff back, but we lost our treasured Thirsty Mate bailing pump.

It was a good lesson for us to stow our crap properly for all passages, even the ostensibly calm, easy ones.