Staniel to Nassau and back to Staniel...

On one of the last few days spent in Staniel Cay we snorkeled the Thunderball Grotto Cave with our friends, Chris and Lisa on Wild Rumpus. Apparently a few movies were filmed there. One being a James Bond movie, Thunderball. To dinghy around the outside of the cave, it doesn’t look like anything special..just a tiny rocky island covered with shrubs. But once you get into the water and swim up and underneath a short and narrow tunnel that leads to the cave, you are blown away! It’s so unique and amazing! I would have dropped my jaw in awe, but my snorkel would have fallen out of my mouth and I would have choked on salt water. I did get a mouthful of salt water, choking me several times, but not because my mouth was open it's just because I’m pretty clumsy with the snorkel/goggles situation. Anyway, so my eyes opened as wide as they would go to soak in all the beauty surrounding me. There is a pretty large opening at the top of the cave that lets in rays of sunlight that penetrates through the crystal clear water making it possible to see all of the brightly colored fish and the coral beds that swayed gently in the mild current. This experience was definitely a highlight of all of the activities in Staniel Cay. The days following our snorkeling excursion, were quite windy and rainy with thunder and lightning shows at night. One day in-between storms we had a very calm and beautiful day so we made a dinghy ride to the other side of the island to the Yacht Club and had a bite to eat and then stocked up on provisions at a nearby market.

Our last afternoon at the anchorage which was stormy and the chop was high and the current swift, we noticed that a monohull in the anchorage was attempting to leave and got hung up on a sandbar. It was shifting from side to side to where the rails were in the water. So this being a very dangerous situation, Chris got in his dinghy, picked up Rick and they along with another couple in their dinghy went to the rescue and eventually got the boat free and it continued on it’s way out of the anchorage. What was interesting about this, is that the couple onboard were older, maybe in their early 70’s and an 80 year old women who were not panicked whatsoever! According to the guys, they said they were all very calm and the 80 year old woman actually had a big smile on her face and seemed to be enjoying the excitement of it all.

The morning of February 8th, we along with Wild Rumpus moved our boats over to the Cruisers Beach at Big Majors. Once there and anchored, we all dinghy’d over to check out the beach where cruisers hang nautical paraphernalia usually with their boat name inscripted, and to look for hiking trails. As the guys were searching one area of the beach in search of trails, Lisa, Harley and I started up a very promising trail. On this trail, Harley was in the lead. It was hard to see where he was exactly due to all of the tree branches at eye level, but the next thing we heard was Harley getting into a scuffle with what we thought was another dog! Turned out it was a very large pig (must have ventured away from Pig Beach located at the other end of the island)! Lisa shouted for Harley to come to her and after a few whimpering noises, he came to her. She picked him up and brought him down back to the beach. To my relief, Harley was unharmed, so we put him on a leash and we all attempted the trail again, cautiously, which led us to the top of the hill seeing some really great views.

Later that night we went to dinner at the Yacht Club joined by Chris and Lisa’s friends Clay and Kris. The meal was very good as usual but it was very loud and hard to hear what everyone was saying, probably because in the center of the restaurant is a busy and lively bar combined with very loud music. Still the same it was a nice evening.

We left the Staniel Cay area and made our way to Shroud Cay in the Land and Sea Park, making a few quick stops at Bell Island, Cambridge Cay and Compass Cay. We were anchored two nights in Staniel Cay. On our last day there, we took the dinghy through what is called the Lazy River, which is a crystal clear water channel lined by mangroves with it’s twists and turns that takes you to the Atlantic side of the island opening up to breathtaking beaches and views!!

February 13th, we were running low on provisions since the last place with a big grocery store was in Georgetown, so we all decided to go all the way to Nassau, stock up and head back south which we did all within 24 hours. We had great sailing days to and from Nassau…using both jib and mainsail. Couldn’t have been any better.

First stop after leaving Nassau was Highbourne Cay, then the next was to Warderick Wells where we spent two nights. It was a beautiful spot! We hiked two of the days, one of those days was to BooBoo Hill. The first day we hiked a very rugged trail on jagged sharp edges of Limestone rock with deep holes in the mix which if you weren’t paying attention and you tripped and fell, you would come out a bloody mess and needing a gazillion stitches. The trail eventually lead to some pretty cool views which made it all worth it. The next day we found a much more hiker friendly sandy trail that took us up to Boo Boo Hill… where there was another artistic nautical themed pile of wood. Along with that there were different trails along the cliffs overlooking the water, beaches and a few blowholes which were not so impressive…probably due to the fact that it was low tide. Later in the day we dove a couple of snorkeling spots, in wetsuits (water was freezing), which had some colorful reef fish and a huge lobster that Chris and Rick saw.

Yesterday, February 17th we sailed to the south side of Staniel Cay, near Pigeon Cay and anchored. Back to where we were almost two weeks ago. We covered a lot of ground in that time.

Photo above of Wild Rumpus at sunrise.

Today we made a quick trip into town to dump trash and grab a few more grocery items. Tomorrow we plan to start heading back towards Georgetown which is around 50 nm. Probably with at least one stop on the way.