We had a wonderful sail here yesterday from Cay Caulker. BlueJacket was accompanied by 2 other boats, Lone Star Love and Querencia. They had never been through Long Cay pass or to Turneffe, so we lead the flotilla. The "cut" at Long Cay really isn't a cut, it's a low spot in the reef. Unfortunately I've never seen a good waypoint for the reef, so you just tend to pick a spot and cross it. On the way in we saw 8.5' as we crossed. Believe me, crossing from deep blue water into 8.5' green/brown water with your sails up and doing 7.5 kts gets your adrenalin going!
Yesterday we were sailing out and were very close hauled. You would have thought that Querencia and BlueJacket were racing as we were side by side. We had 5-7' swells breaking over the reef and doing a great job of showing the high parts. Querencia kept pushing me to the N and I didn't like the looks of the water in that direction. I tacked *right* behind Querencia so that I could head towards what looked like deeper water (this was definately a "pass the grey Poupon" moment). Sue was a bit excited...We crossed the reef and never saw less than 18.5'! Mark this waypoint down! I relayed this info to Brandy who was going out through there later in the day and Carol was thrilled to get this waypoint.
We sailed down the west side of Turneffe and were treated to a fantastic sail with 15 kts on the beam. BlueJacket was strutting her stuff doing 7-8 kts in smooth water. We stayed in the deep water but just to our east we had the Turneffe reef glistening with every color of blue and green that you can imagine. We stopped at a dive ball that I had seen on our past trip. I had hoped that it was going to be some amazing, unknown dive, but it turned out to be another checkout dive spot. Oh well. It might be a good heavy weather mooring for easterlies as it's a strong mooring. We had lunch and moved on.
We stopped at Blue Creek as we've never been here before and wanted to check it out. We anchored to the N of the creek in a nice sand patch in about 12' of water. The creek is well marked with R/G stakes. We took the dinghy out and sounded the entrance and found 6.1' at the mouth. This was with 0.5' falling tide in Belize City, and I have no idea how that translates to the tides here. We've been told to favor the R at the first set of stakes and then center yourself between the next stakes. The creek is very wide with 14-18' from edge to edge. You could easily go in there and ride out any blow. Of course, you might be carried away by the mosquitos, but that's a separate problem.
Today it's back to Lighthouse Reef and more diving. I threw an extra 5 gallons of gas on board so we should have plenty of fuel. Oh, for those of you who complain about the cost of gas in the US, it's $3.86/gallon here! Sue has the refrigerator overflowing, so I doubt that we'll starve.
-- Geoff & Sue
For the cruiser: Long Cay Waypoints - We had at least 8.5' between Cay Caulker and Long Cay
17-38.96N 88-03.81W North of Long Cay
17-38.55N 88-03.20W West of 5' section N of Long Cay
17-38.40N 88-02.50W East of N end of Long Cay
17-38.137N 88-01.666W Low spot in reef. We saw only 18.5' Breaking reef to N
17-23.1N 87-56.4W Approximate location of mooring ball on Turneffe
17-12.32N 87-56.02W Entrance to Blue Creek, Turneffe Islands
Log ID: 475
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