After spending two glorious days in Wardwick Wells we decided to move on to Staniel Key where we were having some boat parts sent by way of their partner airline, Makers Air. It was only 30 nautical miles and a beautiful day for a sail. Coming into Staniel Key was pretty shallow and we could see sharks swimming below the boat! We picked up a mooring there in a pretty spot near the yacht club, and went ashore to pay the fee and check out the yacht club.
We stayed at the yacht club for some appetizers and a few drinks with our friends before heading back to the boat. As we were making our way to the boat, our dinghy motor happened to die just as we were passing in front of a power boat. Douglas furiously worked to get the motor restarted while I screamed my head off, “We are going to die!”. I’m sure they heard my screams, because they turned before killing us. I think that I obviously saved our lives but Douglas claimed that screaming wasn’t helpful at all! Eh, you can’t argue with the results I say.
We spent a few days at Staniel Key waiting for our parcels to arrive, doing laundry, provisioning and snorkeling at the Thunderbolt grotto. The grotto was amazing! It was featured in a James Bond movie, but the movie did not do it justice! To enter the grotto you swim under the side wall and then emerge inside a cavern that has a hole in the roof. There were thousands of fish swimming around our feet and the ceiling had a lot of interesting formations as well as bats hanging in the ceiling.
We also had a long overdue date night at the Yacht Club dining room. It was a 5 course dinner in a nice setting and it was very nice to have some time alone together off the boat to talk about ordinary stuff and not just boat projects! It felt like the old days when we used to enjoy date nights as a way to carve out time to spend together. Together time is not something we are short of anymore though!
Our boat supplies arrived after just a few days of hanging out. We had ordered most things on Amazon and had them sent to our boat broker’s house in Florida where he repacked them all and shipped them. It was very exciting because we needed so many things after sailing for just a few months! Most exciting was the parts for our toilets so we didn’t need to keep living in fear of the next breakdown.
On February 25th we decided to fill up our fuel tank and move on from Staniel Cay to anchor nearby at Big Major beach where the famous swimming pigs are. We were told to bring vegetables for them, which we did since it seems like a strategy to keep them fed for free by the owners. As soon as we arrived we discovered that the pigs were not little cute piggies at all. These were huge pigs trying to board your dinghy to get more food, and man could they swim fast. I got freaked out when they started to try to get their hoofs over the dingy and I made Doug reverse. It was pretty hilarious, and they were still cute, but I had zero interest in swimming with them!
We spent just one night at Big Major, and then headed to Rudder Cay, just 25 nautical miles away. We chose Rudder Cay as a good crossing point to Cat Island where we planned to go next. We also wanted to check out an underwater mermaid statue located close to the anchorage. After we anchored we headed out in our friend’s dinghy to check out the mermaid and some really beautiful small sea caves. The sea caves were the best part for me, because the mermaid was in too deep for me to get a good look. Douglas dove down to look at it though and he said it was cool. We snorkeled a bit around there and at one point Michelle and I were in the dinghy while the guys were in the water, and we saw a bull shark. When the guys surfaced we pointed it out. This time they were like, “Cool, where?”. A few weeks in the Bahamas really desensitizes you to sharks I guess!
