Turtle Cove

April 23-26, 2014-

Bob and John suited up and went diving as soon as the sun was high enough to illuminate the depths.  We had permission to use a dive boat mooring for the night as long as we were off by the time the dive trips started. Bob and John wanted to get some time in the water prior to going diving with a group the following day. bIMG_1945They dropped to 125 feet during their exploration of the wall.  It was a fabulous dive and the first wall dive for John.  What is interesting about a wall dive is that you observe the different sea life at each depth as you descend.  Bob said that after logging five or six wall dives it still blows his mind to swim along at 70 or so feet and then just swim over the cliff where it drops straight down to six or seven thousand feet!  If you drop a weight, you are not going to go down to retrieve it!

The dive boat arrived by 0900 and we were off the mooring with all our gear packed up.  Good timing!  We sailed around the southern end of West Caicos to the northern side of Provo and into Turtle Cove Marina.   That would be our launch point for the trip to Bermuda.  We were in Turtle Cove Marina six years ago for the same trip.   This time we were one of only two transient yachts there.

Thursday evening Jack arrived as our fourth crew member for the Bermuda passage.  Jack was navigator on the trip six years ago and would be so again.  He is also an enthusiastic fisherman.

bIMG_1971Jack also brought with him a special gift from the Andover fourth grade classes we are working with: a message in a bottle. Actually it was messages in a bottle.  Each of the students prepared a short message to the two of us, complete with creative art work, and inserted it into the bottle.  We all got into reading the messages.  It was a lot of fun and was very special for us.

The next two days were spent prepping for the offshore passage.  Jack lines were run, the dinghy washed and hoisted on to the fore deck, the anchor moved to the garage, rigging inspected, lee cloths installed, final laundry and provisioning, and on and on.

 

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