Allans Cay: anchors, iguanas and lobster (but no chicken)

My worst nightmare materialized in our anchorage at Allans Cay: having to reanchor in the middle of the night. That would normally happen if you drag your anchor, but this was a case of just too many boats in a small anchorage subject to wind and current. Instead of having a neat array of boats downwind from their anchors, some boats would swing with the current, some with the wind, while Ñandú remained utterly undecided right above her anchor. I don’t know what Kathy was doing awake at midnight, but she got alarmed when she saw two monohulls about two feet from us. Technically, since they came to the anchorage later than us, they should have moved, but it wasn’t obvious how to wake their crew up and get their boats moving before having any damage. On the other hand, maybe the exact same thing happened the night before, only that no-one was awake to notice.

Regardless, we didn’t have much time to think, so we quickly fired the engines and started moving away from the menacing boats. Luckily, a guy on another boat was awake, concerned about his own boat in this chaos. He saw our predicament and came on his dinghy to help us find another place, which was a blessing because I couldn’t really see anything in that moonless night, other than the light on his dinghy. The cruising community is amazing in how they take care of each other.

Our first attempt at reanchoring failed, as we ended up now too close to our savior’s catamaran. In the second one we ended up very close to another boat, but as long as we didn’t drag our anchor we would be fine… which meant not much sleep for the rest of the night. The next morning we decided to move to the other side of the anchorage, a lot less crowed because it’s either very shallow on a sand bar, or very deep in the channel, very close to the rocks. We tried to anchor in the narrow Goldilocks zone. Our first attempt left us with too little water under our rudders to be comfortable on an ebbing tide. We succeeded on the second one. That whole ordeal set a new record for us: five anchoring spots in less than 12 hours.

Next to us on our new location was a Bahamian fishing boat. One of the fishermen passed close by, carrying a load of conch to the mother ship on his skiff. Behind his dark and wrinkled skin, his beautiful smile, and his entirely uncertain age, lied a tough negotiator, as we soon learned. Kathy waved at him and asked if he had any lobster. He came closer.

“What do you want for dinner?” He asked. “Conch? Lobster? Chicken?” We didn’t see any lobster on his boat but I could believe he was capable of producing some. Chicken, not so sure.

“Lobster”.

“How many do you want?”

“One.”

He scoffed. “OK, I’ll bring you one.”

“How much will it be?”

“No, I can’t charge you for one. I’ll bring one and give it to you.”

“Wait… No! We want to pay for it!”

“I can’t charge you. I wouldn’t know how much.”

“How much do you charge for a dozen? We’ll divide that by twelve.”

He just laughed loudly and contagiously, but didn’t bulge.

“How about we trade for beer?” I tried.

“That may work.”

He left and came back with a beautiful lobster. We gave him a few beers, but he did make a show before finally accepting them. Then, as he motored away, he blew several kisses to Kathy.