We five

There were just four boats inside North Minerva Reef when we entered, including some old friends. When we heard there was a beach party organizing, we just knew Oceanna’s Kaycee and Greg were at the bottom of it. They seem to be running a traveling world cabaret tour of mayhem and fun. The only problem I could see was that there’s no beach. Those two put the energizer bunny to shame so you just have to believe that they’ve somehow found a spot of sand somewhere that dries out at low tide. We just didn’t know where this “beach” was.

At the appointed hour, with the sun just getting low we piled into Catnip along with your major beach party requirements; old magazines for burning, a couple of beers for drinking, and something to nibble on. Marce thought she’d heard Greg say it’s over to the right of the lighthouse so we cranked up Catnip and headed out across the anchorage, which has to be a couple of miles wide, looking for…we didn’t know what. We soon found it, a dinghy traveling at high velocity towing a wakeboarder. Greg always travels at full throttle so we figured it had to be them. We caught up as they beached Marie (their dink) on a spit of coral sand 3 meters by 8, just beginning to dry out.  

  This party has a built-in time limitation as the tide would soon be coming back in so Greg started furiously chopping coconuts for the husks to start a fire, with a short break for competitive juggling.   

     
 It gets really, really dark, really, really fast out here but we were rewarded with a spectacular sunset. It was Photo Op Central for everyone.  

    
   
Our toes started to get wet on the incoming tide as our beach disappeared and in near total darkness we headed out toward our twinkling anchor lights way off in the distance. Macushla had the foresight to bring along a flashlight or torch as they say, so I tucked in behind them nestled in the middle of the vee formed by their wake. It was then that I noticed things flashing by in the water! Finally I realized that in near total darkness, with no moon, lit only by a few stars, I was looking at the bottom of the lagoon 70 feet down.

What a night.