Staniel Cay

We love Staniel Cay! We always have such a great time here and there is so much to do. From the quaint little town to the beautiful beaches, there is something to fill every minute of our day.

Yesterday we headed over to meet up with friends of ours from Georgetown. From their boat, we swam over to Thunderball Grotto - the famous grotto where a scene from James Bond's "Thunderball" was filmed. It is a beautiful grotto, lit from above filled with beautiful coral and fish just waiting to be fed! The current really rushes, so we had to wait for slack tide to head in, and of course it's always crowded since there is such a small window to experience it. But we headed in, trying to avoid getting slapped in the head with someone else's flipper, swam to the middle of the cave where there weren't too many people and I opened up my bag of peas and let the fishes come to me! They are quick to swarm anyone that comes in bearing gifts of food and we were not disappointed. Such an amazing sight to see these guys swimming all around you!

After we had our fill of fish feeding, we swam back over to our friend's boat for some snacks and good conversation. Catching up with old friends while enjoying the sea breeze in the cockpit of their large catamaran is not a bad way to pass an afternoon!

Today, we headed over to pig beach to take on the infamous swimming pigs! We are always a bit leery of these mammals as their large hooves have come close to taking out our inflatable dinghy and they are not shy about attempting to take off your fingers while you are still holding that piece of lettuce. This time, we waited until there were other boats there on the beach and we landed our dinghy far down on the other end and walked over to the action. They immediately spotted us and came running. I freaked out! I threw all the food on the sand and backed up right in to Brad! When they still came over towards us, I walked a bit into the water hoping that would deter them....what a blonde moment - they are called the swimming pigs for goodness sake!!!

They finally realized we didn't have any more treats and were happy to just munch of the veggies I had strewn about the beach. We both finally relaxed and were able to get some great pictures of them and to get close to the little piglets that were running about.

We opted to fill our afternoon with one more fish feeding grotto adventure and then we headed back for a lazy afternoon on the beach with Koa. Tomorrow we head into the Exuma Land and Sea Park.

Swimming Pigs!

1.24.15

We made it to the island of the infamous swimming pigs! We anchored only about 100 yards off the beach and so were able to watch the tourists feeding the pigs all day. And, much to our surprise and my utter enjoyment, there were lots of little piggies this year! Due to our experience the previous year with a large pig almost coming completely into our dinghy, Brad refused to take us close enough to feed them. But we did venture over to take a closer look. All those little pigs were so adorable and I wanted to land the dinghy, but all the deflated remains of dinghies scattered about the shore are warning enough for any sailor.

The first day we were there, the weather was great - sunny with light winds. We dinghied over to Staniel Cay Yacht Club and had a meal at the bar - our first meal on land since we left the states two weeks ago! We enjoyed sitting at the busy bar and people watching all the "yachties" that frequent the docks. Later, we were able to stock up on some groceries, although the mail boat had not come into town that week so the supplies were quite picked over. And, most importantly, we stocked up on rum! Thank goodness!!

The following day, the wind arrived and we spent a miserable day bouncing around on the boat. It really wasn't even too bad except that after about 8 hours of bouncing, I was ready to have my feet on solid ground! That was not to be, as the wind continued overnight and into the morning.

At first light, we hauled up the anchor and headed even farther South in preparation for another front that was hot on the heels of this one. What's with all this West Wind?!!