A Whale of A Day!

After a raucous night at the Tiki Hut (rib night!) and a much-appreciated viewing of "After the Sunset" aboard Equinox (with huge thanks and kudos to Scott off Rasmus, since he did the download and persevered to accomplish the DVD burning into the right format for viewing!) we all crawled off to bed. Earthling is already out of the marina, currently on anchor in the spartan but protected confines of the unfinished Cooper Jack marina basin, and we are due to leave tomorrow.  It seems our little moment of shared space and time is coming to an end, as all things must. Bittersweet!

Cam and Ron blowing the conch shells to signal Happy Hour at the SSM Cabana

We left South Side Marina at the high tide, which was at noon today. As always, it’s hard to say goodbye to the new friends we’ve made here: Brittany and Scott, Kelly and George, Sharon and Andy, Bob, Cam and his wife Judy. In cruising, it truly is a constant case of “ships that pass in the night”! I take comfort in knowing that some day, the song-lines of our lives might very well intersect and harmonize once more, and we shall meet again. Actually, in cruising, it’s inevitable!

Ron and I went out to West Caicos to stage our next passage from there. We anchored in the sand in about 40’ of water between a couple of the dive moorings; one was occupied and the other too far from the edge of the wall for a good dive site. As we prepared to dive after anchoring, a WHALE surfaced next to the boat!! It was a good 50’ long, and it leisurely circled us, surfacing a few times before heading out over the wall and away to the deep. How cool was that? Very!!

Not a great photo, but this fellow was just surfacing off the aft end of Equinox!

Our dive was somewhat anticlimactic after the whale sighting. We had only one shark escort, who didn’t stay long (do whales scare away sharks?) although we did see a turtle and the usual plethora of reef fish on this magnificent wall. It was a nice farewell to Turks and Caicos nevertheless. We enjoyed a quiet evening on anchor, although the night was less quiet, being somewhat rolly as the current changed with the changing tide. Ah well, we could have ducked into the unfinished West Caicos marina but opted not to do so. Our choice!