Bonefish Missle Crisis Anchorage

4/27/09

Author: Doug

Allen's Pensacola to Carter's Cays.

Left Allen's Pensacola and had a two and half hour run to Carter's Cays. Very strong winds again.

Back in Green Turtle the Vienna Sausages told us about a seldom visited cay called Carters. They said the anchorage is well protected and that there is an abandoned missile tracking station there that the boys would love. Even though they get around using "a really great map with lots of colors and numbers and stuff on it" we took their word for it.

We trolled up some barracuda and a bunch of big Cero Mackerel on the way.

The wind howled on our beam as we crossed a very hairy shallow flat to get in to the tiny harbor. The whole way in Jen and I second guessed ourselves for trusting them. But when we finally got in, they were right, it was really calm in there. Other than some unattended commercial lobster boats rotting at their moorings we were the only souls there. In fact it seemed like we were the only people who had been there since the Reagan administration.

We took the dinghy and went exploring and found, you guessed it, a great little beach. At the top of the bluff above the beach were some abandoned military style buildings. I took the opportunity to fill the boys heads with stories about underground missile stations, and told them there were probably people tracking our every step. There was also a freaky little road to nowhere and a huge wrecked satellite looking dish thing. Dr. No lives. We also talked about the Cuban Missile Crisis and why a place like that existed during the 1960s and 1970s. It was a great history lesson, but the whole island still has a weird, spooky vibe.

It blew hard again that night, but the anchors stuck like glue. The next morning I found another bonefish flat (I'm making it sound hard, it was right next to the big boat, I could have swum to it) and went fishing. Almost a carbon copy morning of the day before at Allen's Pensacola. I got three more bones from 7 to 10 lbs. The first pic is taken from the big boat of me wading the flat. My second best all time morning of bonefishing.