Beach Combing at low tide - or - The hundred-yard dinghy drag…

We read that the beach combing was great on the south and east beaches of Mayaguana and since we were to be there for a bit, we decided to check it out. Lots of interesting stuff - both man made and natural washes up on the windward beaches. Hamburger beans, (sort-of flattened buckeye-shaped seeds) make their way across the Atlantic from Africa and all sorts of fishing nets, lines and floats wash up on shore. I was searching for the Holy Grail of beach combing; the glass ball fishing float and Michele wanted Hamburger beans and a good walk.

We set out from Crossroads in our dink late in the morning with a bit of water, a couple beers and a granola bar. A break in the inner reef allowed us to power into the shallow, sandy area that leads to the shore. I tipped the outboard up for shallow running and when that was churning the sand on the bottom, we got out and waded the last fifty yards in foot-deep water.

It has been a long time since we have had to worry about tides. The islands of the Windward and Leeward chains don’t have much tide and the water is usually quite deep until you hit the shore. Not so in the Bahamas, and Mayaguana is in the Bahamas. Forgetting this and the fact that the tide drops over two feet here, we pulled the dinghy to the shore and dragged it up out of the water. We took a nice long walk to the east towards town and checked out a wrecked Bahamian racing sloop on the shore. All the fishing floats were foam or plastic but we did find one hamburger bean. I noticed that the water was receding but assured Michele that it was about to turn and start flowing back in. At least we didn’t have to worry about the dinghy floating away. We returned to the dink and had a little picnic with the meager supplies we had brought. It was hot sitting on the inflated side tubes of our “car” drinking the last of the water and watching the ocean getting farther away. We were now fifty yards from the water and I was sure that the tide should be coming back in soon. As we had no desire to drag our heavy boat across fifty yard of sticky sand-clay mix, we took another walk (the other way) to give the tide time to return.

This walk was, for me even longer than the first one. We found some interesting French fishing floats made of aluminum and some nice green plastic ones from Spain, but no glass- does anybody still use glass? Michele headed back to the dinghy but I pressed on, hopeful that my glass float would be in the next pile of nets and junk… or the next one. I finally gave up and headed back to Michele with my treasures of the sea and one more ‘burger bean. It was after 3:00 as we sat on the sides of our inflatable boat 100 yards from the water, and waited. Hot and thirsty we waited for the water to crawl back towards shore. An hour later we couldn’t take it anymore and decided to start slowly dragging the dingy out toward the water. At least we would be doing something. Our sandals and the boat stuck in the soft clay-sand mix but we managed to pull a few feet at a time. We stopped to rest a lot and eventually got into an inch or two of water. This made the going a bit easier and soon we were floating the boat as we waded along side. With the tide now actually coming in and with us pulling out, we were able to get in and finally drop the motor down when we were 100 yards from shore. We were glad to return to Crossroads for water and shade after our five-hour beach combing expedition. Sailors—watch your tide tables!

Glenn