Cocoa Bay

10^th to 13^th May 2019

The approach was a lot easier than we were expecting – follow the approach lines on the chart and there’s plenty of room either side. Lots of coral patches closer to the headland, though, some of which are VERY shallow.

The bay is a beautiful miles-long soft (REALLY soft) sandy beach. Pretty much what you imagine when you think “Caribbean beach”. Arthur called it “butter sand” which is pretty apt. Good for digging.

You need to be careful landing the dinghy as the depth of the water shelves very quickly over the final few meters to the beach, which means a small swell can build up to a waist-high breaker. Not a problem, at all, but a couple of the dinghies from the charter boats were not expecting it and, well, I laughed a little.

We were lucky enough to wander past the exclusive resort on the front while its owner and family were the only people there. They also have three kids. The owner kindly invited us to make use of the pool and everything else for a couple of days before the next set of paying guests arrived. We took advantage of that the following afternoon, spending a few hours with the resort to ourselves – rather luxurious. Arthur and Theo’s favourite bit was… the blow-up swan in the pool (which belonged to the owners kids). I quite enjoyed the inflatable climbing frame / slide anchored a short swim offshore. Hector loved running towards the delicate glass lamps on the floor until Charlotte or I picked him up. Charlotte appreciated the barely-chlorinated and bath-warm swimming pool, next to shaded area with sunbrella-clad sunbeds, a bed, and a hammock. A nice one-day vacation!

While we were at anchor, we got the fishing rod out. I nearly caught a largeish fish (3’ or so), a couple of times. By which I mean a fish stole my lure after a short fight broke the line. Twice. Arthur confidently identified them as remora. So, they probably were (he’s good with fish). We also tried out the handline, which would cope with larger fish, and then saw some reef sharks sniffing around – which was cool to see. But, of course, we put the line away immediately, don’t want to catch one of those! The remora (we think) returned regularly and had most of our leftovers over the next few days which we all enjoyed watching.