Vivario Cays

Sunday, May 12, 2002

015-50.340 N
083-17.940 W

Ahoy from the Vivario Cays, which are a delightful set of cays about 50 miles NNW of Media Luna, our last stop. Unlike Media Luna, there's actual land here! During the "season" there are about 15 fisherman here, but now there's only 5 fisherman here (and 1 woman), all of whom are awaiting a boat to take them home. Unfortunately the supply boats have stopped coming and they don't know when the next one will come here...more on that later.

We had a great sail here. We left at 07:30 with perfect winds; 15-20 kts on the beam. We did hull speed for most of the trip with a single reef in. The seas were 4-6' on the beam which made it a bit bumpy, but all in all the ride was great. The DMA charts are dead on, even the location of Cabo Falso, which some have reported to be further east.

We anchored off the broken down docks of Grand Cayos Vivorillo (at 15 50.095N 83 18.202W) near the shacks of the fishing village. Two fishermen, Ivan & Tiger, came out and befriended us. Frank, on Passion Too, bargined with them to take us diving the following day for conch, lobster, crab and fish That night, a tropical wave moved through, bringing with it impressive squall lines of towering cumulus thunderheads.

The following day Ivan & Tiger showed up and took us diving. Several miles from the boats the dinghy engine stopped and we found that the starter battery was totally dead...a daunting problem in 20 kt winds blowing us out to sea...We decided to dive and solve the problem when we got back up. Luckily, for Frank & I, we don't make our living fishing. I got a crab & conch. Frank got 3 conch. Ivan & Tiger got 3 crabs, 5 conch, 6 lobster, and several fish! Happily the engine started and we made it back to the boats without any problems.

Later that afternoon we all headed over to a small cay and had a cookout. What was really cool was that the air was literally filled with terns getting ready to nest. It was even hard to hold conversations at times with all of the racket that they made. At one end of the island fisherman cut up and salt sharks, and there were several large hammerhead heads that they had caught inside the reefs! Makes you think twice about what swims out there! We cooked up some of the fish and conch and had a great meal.

During the meal it became apparent that Ivan & Tiger really needed to get back to the Bay Islands, so we offered to take one of them with us. Hopefully Passion Too will take the other one, as they're delightful people. Anyhow, I think that we're headed off to the Bay Islands tomorrow, and that's a 155 nm downwind cruise.

Log ID: 233