Incredible, Illuminated Sand Spots

I mentioned in a previous blog that we try to anchor in sand patches; the holding is best there, and it minimizes our impact on the sea grass and corals. During the day, sand patches are easy to see because they show up bright blue against darker sea grass meadows. Deep sand is somewhat harder to distinguish than shallow sand underlaying with hard pan (rock), but it’s doable. Anyway, when we entered the anchorage at Frazer’s Hog Cay the other night, it was dark, with no shore-side lights nearby and no moon, only lots of stars. We intended to use the Q-beam to find sand patches, but figured it was going to be a difficult task, going back and forth so see what substrate was below us. But lo and behold, when we looked out over the dark water, we could actually SEE the sand patches gleaming in the starlight. Wow! We couldn’t get a picture of the sand hole at night, but here’s a picture of the contrast between the sand hole and the surrounding sea grass the next morning.