Swift

The Secret of the Shrine: South Cat Cay

When we sailed past the point on South Cat Cay and into the anchorage, my beady little eyes were drawn to a set of concrete stairs with a tiki hut in the background. I had to climb the stairs! I had to have a picnic at the hut! Were the stairs left over from some 1960's mansion? 
Alas, I will never know. The stairs were only mildly reachable at high tide, and there was no way to tie off the dinghy without getting bashed to death on the surrounding rocks. The mystery lives on!

 We were expecting a beach on the banks side to land our dinghy. Instead, we found the beach on this side had been leveled and a very convenient dinghy dock had been provided. How kind! Who or what is AVIVA?  
On day 2 of our stay, a fishing boat joined us, providing us something to monitor.
We had seen a new yet un-monitored golf cart on the island, some random cables, and of course the leveled off beach. How did the golf cart get there? Who did it belong to? On day 3, a question was answered. A ship appeared, pulled all the way up to the beach, and a cart with a person (where did the person come from!!!) appeared, drove up to the ship, and off-loaded a pallet. One pallet. Then, activity ceased. 
On day 4, a golf cart was driven from one end of the island to the other.

 On day 5, we finally dinghyed to the north beach where we had spotted tiki huts. By now, we have gathered that the island is under construction and will be a resort. But why the tikis first instead of a building? Are they there for marketing photos? As a psychological experiment on the one cruiser a month (or year) that stops here? 

Rounding the corner, we found a huge fire pit! What! More marketing photos? 
Hastings thought the fire pit was a good spot to rest, recover and try and process this strange island.
We kept walking, and lo, another sign! AVIVA! 
We really couldn't believe it when a HUGE pergola and HUGE tiki appeared! There was room for a wedding, a dance club, a bar.... our imaginations were just trying to cope with the reason for all this fluff construction. 
And then the shrine appeared. Matt thought it was a wedding altar, and I thought it was a musician's stand. What do you think it could be? Write down your answer! 
This island just keeps coming with the weirdness. Next we found literally acres of interconnecting saltwater lagoons and rivers. I simply can't imagine how much work is involved in digging through all this rock (limestone?). Will it be a lazy river? A place to throw your relatives into a shark pit? A cool aquarium? 
Another strange hut!! A very small one! 
With just an altar in it! 
Our best guess is the construction group built all these tikis and had an investors event here. All the tikis could have had bar service, lovely fire pit, look at the beach, etc. 

 Day 6 was very exciting. 2 golf carts appeared and were driven to our personal dinghy dock.....and a very fancy yacht arrived! It was almost too much for me. Maybe I should stop watching LOST at night. 
Are you ready for the mystery of the shrine / wedding altar / musician's platform? Come, worship at the altar....of the one and only porcelain throne!


It's a toilet! Ha! A totally functioning flush toilet, all plumbed and ready for you! You really can't imagine how much laughter this brought me :-) Now, what did you guess it was? 

This is the story of Matt, Lucy and Hastings, the crew of the sailing vessel Dulcinea, a 1985 Cabo Rico 38.

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3 comments

  1. LiesbetFebruary 26, 2017 at 12:27 PM

    I was actually going to guess that the "altar" hut was an outhouse! Never thought it would have a real, nice, Western toilet in it, though! Mystery solved. Maybe you should become a detective in your rare spare time? :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Boat Life Larks - S/V DulcineaFebruary 26, 2017 at 5:59 PM

      I think I have too much time on my hands and have too little TV if I find a toilet exciting, lol.

      Delete
  2. with love julianneJune 22, 2023 at 5:29 AM

    Thhanks great blog

    ReplyDelete

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