Lee Bay


                                      Lee Bay,   Great Camano Island,  BVI

 

Haven't been to this bay before, but it is very pretty and quiet, lots of coral to watch out for and as its a smaller bay, there was no room to move up into the sand.  Our awesome Rochna anchor had no problems.

Ran into Brian and Diane on Sea Quell II , Canadians from Edmonton, that we had met 3 yrs ago. So it was a happy hour catch up.

Bill and Donna on Moonraker, from Annapolis moved into Sea Quells spot when they left  and proved to be very interesting boaters that had done lots and were also into cave exploring.
Bill had great stories and so Gord had a rival for who could monopolize the conversation.




Bill and Donna  on "Moonraker"



 

Bill on Anchor duty ,  Donna on the Helm



 

About that time, the Puerto Rican Navy  ( Puerto Ricans in their big power boats)  started to move in for the Easter weekend.  They anchor way out then back the boat to shore and tie across the beach to the trees, rocks or anything else they can find.  The next one comes in, does the same thing.  Once they are in place they raft together, not only taking up the whole beach, but running their lines across the beach  so you can't walk the beach and putting their anchors way out 400 ft into the bay, so no one can properly  anchor in the sand where you are supposed to.




Puerto Rican navy,   lines crisscrossing beach almost invisible

Moonraker was understandably upset when they came bow to bow with him and proceeded to drop their anchor over his.  Shouting and gesturing ensued and the Puerto Ricans finally aborted and moved over slightly and off his anchor.  But,  he had enough and left for bays unknown.

The only problem is they do this in every bay, so there are few places that you can go to get away from them.

After our problems with the credit card captains on top of our anchor, we've devised an anchor ball routine.  If you attach an anchor ball right to your anchor, some credit card captain will just drive over it and pull up your anchor, leaving you both in a fix. So, we anchor, dinghy over it with our looky pail ( a pail with the bottom cut out and clear plexi glued in the hole.)  then we drop a spare dinghy anchor with  our anchor ball attached about 20-25 ft in front of our anchor. That marks the spot, warns them away and still gives us some maneuvering room to override the anchor when pulling it up.

We watched Puerto Rican after Puerto Rican cruise up ready to drop, then back off as they saw our ball. They don't want it fouling their props, so it kept them off our bow and worked better than we ever imagined.

In all,  10 big power boats rafted up against the shore, settled in for the holiday and proceeded to get out every kind and shape of water toy imaginable. They had lots of kids aboard , so for once the blaring music into the night was not a problem.

Monday or Tuesday night was supposed to be a full BLOOD Moon eclipse at about 3am. We got up for it , but it was too cloudy on Monday night. Tuesday was clear as a bell , but even though I got up every 15 minutes from 3am to 5am, No blood Moon, so it  must have happened behind the clouds on Monday night.  Win some, lose some!


Full Moon behind the Puerto Rican Navy

 

 

 We hung around a while in this bay as the snorkelling on both sides was awesome and you could walk thru to the next bay which was shallow and reef protected with a baby shark cruising the shoreline and many wrays hugging the bottom in water so warm it was like a bathtub. I found about 6-8 sand dollars ( a truly rare find).




Sue Snorkel diving for shells




Gord snorkelling

Wray



Sea Urchin




Parrot Fish

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Some brand new boat owners ( purchased 3 weeks ago) moved in behind us and we had a few fun happy hours- Irv and Gwen on Assimic.  Gord was in heaven, as he got to do his favorite thing; give loads of advice, display all his toys and generally tell them exactly what they should do and when they should do it.  
Being new they actually listened.

After only three days the Puerto Ricans were rushing around gathering kids, toys and anchors and were making a mass, quick exit.   What gives, its only Thursday and the weekend hadn't even arrived yet??
The police boat pulling into the Bay to inform them that they could not tie their big power boats to the vegetation on park property, may have been the reason. They must have been warned they were on the way, as they cleared out all those boats in less than an hour.

Our anchor was wedged pretty good under 2 small pieces of coral  and I was awake most of the night planning and strategizing about all the ways to extract our anchor, without damaging the coral or breaking our anchor or chain, as by now the 20 knot winds had arrived and we were ready to head to Leverick Bay.
By 5:30 am I had settled on the 2 best plans and was able to finally go to sleep.

As we got ready to leave , we headed out to have a look, so we'd know which plan to go with , when much to our delight, the 2 pieces had broken off and our anchor was laying there clear of all obstruction and easy to lift.  It certainly does work to pray for what you want.