We decided today's the day to move on to Green Turtle Cay and the Green Turtle Club. We'll stay there until the weather is good enough to pass through 'The Whale'! We fueled up....$6.17 per gal....WOW!! Of course when we backed away from our dock to go to the fuel dock, a squall had to pass through at the same time!! Oh well the little bit of rain isn't going to delay today's trip and it actually feels pretty good.
The winds are predicted to blow 10-20 kts out of the SE which again is the direction of our heading for today! Chuck jokingly said that we should rename our boat to 'On the Nose' LOL Everything was going along well, considering the waves, when all of a sudden we hit a sandbar and came to a grinding halt!! How can this be? Our charts are telling us there is 17 feet of water....both of our electronic charts as well as our Explorer Charts. This happened a little SW of Ambergris Cay. After closer inspections of our charts, there was wording on the 17 feet of water that said 'shifting sandbar'.. Well guess what? We found it!
Cay. As we neared the island, there were about 8 boats anchored off Manjack Cay and they looked
to be pretty protected from the SE winds. We were pretty sure they were waiting for a weather window to do 'The Whale'. As we got close to the channel that is the approach to the White Sound at Green Turtle Cay, I hailed the club. Justin, who we met at Spanish Cay when he was covering for his brother, came back at me and commented that he was glad that ' we made it'. We knew that Justin would be greeting us when we tied up at our assigned dock. 
After tying up, we went to check in. This time of the year, Green Turtle gives boaters a choice to pay either 85 cents a foot or do their 'dock and dine'. We chose the latter.....the price of the food we eat is deducted from our dockage bill. What a deal. We had cooked on our boat for the last 5-6 days and we were ready to eat out!! 
We ate lunch in their cozy screened-in-porch and then decided to see the island by golf cart. Our first thoughts were to walk or ride our bikes. Good thing we didn't. The roads were mainly dirt and most of them were filled with ruts. Plus, we got lost trying to find the right road to the New Plymouth settlement. While retracing our route, a local guy flagged us down for a ride back to the club....the Green Turtle Club that is! Before we dropped him off, we tried to communicate with him about the directions to New Plymouth. Apparently neither of us 
understood the other at first, but finally he grasped our question!It wasn't long once we got headed on the right dirt road and in the correct direction... boy was it a bumpy ride...and yikes, we round out we had to drive on the left side of the road!!!!! When we got to the settlement, there was a one way road that looped around the very small town. The road was one lane, the buildings were very close together, and many of them were boarded up. It seemed to be a very depressed town. There were some boats anchored in the Black Sound which is behind the settlement and the water is very shallow.
Pictures at New Plymouth
Black Sound at New Plymouth
After doing the loop twice, we took off to the 
other end of the island. We wanted to check out the other marina, Bluff House Marina. It's cheap to dock here as well. I think I read 85 cents unless you stay for more than 2 days and then it drops to 70 cents. It looked to be a very nice place to stay also. 
We had the golf cart for 4 hours but I think we went on every road we could find. So, we turned it back in after only 2 hours. That's okay. We headed back to the boat to relax and clean up before dinner from 6:30-8:30. The same waitresses were working that were at the restaurant for lunch but they were dressed up for the evening. We had our choice to eat in the 'fine dining' room or out on the screened in porch. The balmy weather made this a no brainer.....we ate out but this time the tables had white tablecloths and napkins. Very nice!! The food was outstanding!!!
We checked out the bar as well as the boaters' lounge. The bar was unique. It had dollar bills hanging all over the walls. The tradition must be to sign your dollar and find a spot on the wall to hang it.....different that's for sure.
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