Orient Beach 3-21

In the morning around 7, we noticed several fishing boats outside of the bay. A couple seamed to just circle around and another 2 were sitting still. Soon realized that 2 of them were pulling a net, the others were just checking it. Eventually they pulled the nets past our boat and continued in toward shore. Noah and I went in with the dinghy to check it out. By the time we landed, they had started to pull the nets in by hand from the shore, so we joined in to to help them pull. They caught a small stingray, a large barracuda, a couple of turtles (that were grabbed by the flippers and tossed back in the water) and lots of small fish. I recognized some red snapper and yellow tail, but there were a lot of other small ones. Eventually they were all tossed into a small wooden dinghy, and  they took them over to Grand Case to sell.

We went back out to the boat to pick up Tracy and Delaina. They claim to have seen a cattle drive go by, but I think someone may have  been hitting the rum a little early today. Back on shore, 3 horses were brought down on the beach and were being ridden out in the water, and Delaina found 2 donkeys back behind the Beach Cafe. It all made for a pretty interesting morning.

We hauled anchor at 11 and raised the main (2nd reef) and unrolled the  full head sail. We had a great sail in 18 knots of wind, setting off on a long tack towards the east end of Anguilla before turning and heading south inside of Spanish Rock and down the coast towards Orient Bay. The bay is lined by 2 reefs that we must pass between, sailing south until the opening and then turning west. According to the chart and the GPS we were out far enough, but the cruising guide warns that if you drop below 25 feet of water you should turn back out and try again. There are some shoals that are out further then  shown on the chart. We thought we were clear, but sure enough we hit 18 feet of water, and quickly turned back out to sea. After again reaching deep water we headed south again to line up the entrance between the reefs. This time we had deep water all the way in. Our first attempt to find an anchorage was at the North end of the bay tucked in behind Ilet Pinel, this is a tight spot tucked between 2 islands and surrounded by a reef and rocks. The anchorage was completely full. Not sure if this was because its a weekend or just because its always a busy place, but we decide not to try and shoe horn in. We head down to the south east end of the bay behind Green Cay where there is a lot more room. There is a large reef between Green Cay and the beach providing protection, but the wind is blowing straight in and making some waves in the anchorage.  The guide warns that it can roll a bit in swells, but they aren’t too bad, and we prefer  this wide open anchorage to the other tighter option.  We drop the hook about 2pm, and dive on the anchor to check it out. It had dragged through the sand when we were setting it, but was now dug in deep in the eel grass. We take the opportunity to measure the chain, and add some markers on the chain to make it easier to set the scope for future anchoring. Noah spots a huge ray while we are doing this. There are lots of conch shells down in the eel grass.

On shore is the famous Orient Beach,  with the  ‘Naturalist Club’ at one end. Unfortunately, this proves again that the only people on a nude beach are the ones you would never want to see naked.   I could also make a joke about all the dinghies on the beach, but I’ll pass on that one. We found a good spot for the kids to swim down a ways from the nature lovers, and stay there until about 5:00.