Staniel Cay

Friday April 25, 2014
Lat
Long

Spent an hour or so tidying up the boat. Underway by 9 AM. The forecast was pretty benign so we headed into the Sound. That was a mistake. The waves were sharp 4 and 5 footers with a few 6 footers thrown in. I really felt cheated. We could have taken the inside, protected route. We were only going 15 miles or so to Staniel Cay so we stuck it out. This time I caught the computer screen before it fell on its face.

We had read nice things about Staniel. This is where one can feed the ‘swimming pigs” and is also the location of the grotto made famous in the James Bond movie Thunderball. I had also decided to take on about 100 gallons of fuel – not that we were running out but because I had not been paying proper attention to the fuel balance and Tide Hiker had quite a list. We had been watching a thunder storm develop as we approached so as soon as we made it thru the entrance we made a bee line to the fuel dock (and after waiting 10 minutes for help in the strong current) made Tide Hiker secure. Then the heavens opened up.

The attendant said we could stay while the storm persisted. Deidre attended to the fuel. We are a bit apprehensive about fuel quality here and so she loaded it all in one tank so we could isolate it if necessary. I took the opportunity of running up to the BATELCO store to buy a new SIM card for the iPad. The rain was pouring down, I had the iPad protected in a plastic bag and under my coat. I got to the door (at 12:50 PM) only to find it locked. There was no shelter, the rain was coming down in buckets. I could see people inside so I knocked (was ignored) knocked again (just embarrassed faces) and kept this up till I got a reaction. After a few yells thru the door I was told that it was lunch at 1:00 PM. They eventually let me in and after 30 minutes I had the new chip. Talk about Bahamas “Customer Service”.

We asked about a couple of mooring balls we had seen on the way in. We were told it was ‘first come first served” and that someone would visit and charge us $20 a day. They were in a prime location so we headed back. There was a lot of current and it took us about 6 tries before we snared the ball.

What could I add?

Once secured and settled, we headed into town to do some shopping and have a look around. Talk about a dump. This was the most ram shackled place we had visited. What a shame. The marina was the only place that had seen a broom and a coat of paint for many moons. On the way back we stopped at the marina restaurant and had a beer.

We watched the “Thunderball” movie and went to bed.

Please note the chicken

At the super market

Saturday April 26, 2014

One of the swimming pigs

Took the dink over to see the pigs.  It was a nice run, about a mile to a beach and anchorage called “Big Major Spot”. We were quite surprised to see about 20 yachts and trawlers anchored there. We motored into the beach and did “the pig thing”. It was quite fun. Our objective was to get close enough for a few photos but not too close where they could slice open the side of the dinghy. Deidre had brought a bag off carrots.Then back to Tide Hiker via “the grotto”. Deidre waited in the dink  while I swam in. It was “OK” but certainly no big deal. Back to Tide Hiker for lunch and a snooze. We were disturbed by a large float plane landing very close to us. Took some tourist swimmers over to the grotto.

More bloody tourists

Deidre, they are more scared of you!

One of those "Row yourself over the Atlantic" boats