Sampson Cay

1.29.11

We headed out early this morning and took the dinghy 3 miles North to Compass Cay. We had heard there was some good snorkeling and a great Eastern beach. We beached the dinghy on the South side of the island, hauled it up as far as we could, set an anchor and prayed it would be there when we got back.
There was nothing on this island with the exception of a few houses and a marina, all of which were on the western side. We started walking around towards the Eastern beach and soon realized we were in for quite a hike. It was a gorgeous day and the views were incredible, we hiked up and along cliff tops - some craggy limestone, some layers of long ago hardened sediment. We found a cool cave right along the water and went in for a quick peek. We hiked for a bit farther and suddenly came to what looked like a dried out lake in the middle of the island. It stretched across the whole island and now looked like a flat desert – kind of strange for an island surrounded by water.
After about an hour of hiking, we made it to “The Beach”, and it was gorgeous. Crescent shaped with beautiful soft white sand, protected from the Eastern swells by rocks and reefs, it sat recessed back in a cove. We swam about for awhile, although the water was too rough to go out snorkeling.
We finally had to head back and opted to travel across the dried up lake to the western side of the island in hopes that there was a quicker way back to the dinghy. We were going along at a steady clip when suddenly the sand beneath our feet went from hard packed to soft and wet. We sunk in with every third step up to our knees; it would appear we had stumbled on a bog of some sort.
We back-tracked and went around the “wet stuff” on harder sand until we got to a beach on the western side. From there it was a short walk back along a rock strewn beach to our dinghy, which was thankfully, still there!
We took our time going back and stopped at a few places along the way to check out some possible reefs. Unfortunately, the tide through Pipe Creek, which was our path home, was ripping so we weren't able to get out of the dinghy. So, I would steer while Brad would stick his head over the side of the dinghy and let me know if there was anything worth seeing. Unfortunately, most of the reefs were unimpressive and the only exciting thing we saw was a 6foot nurse shark.
We returned home and took the short dinghy ride over to Sampson Cay for some dinner. We had an excellent Bahamian meal of beef tenderloin kabobs and cajun chicken – all very spicy! We decided there wasn't much to do here so we would head down to Staniel Cay tomorrow for more exploring.