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Thursday, March 16th - Staniel Cay, Bahamas
Two and a half weeks was a long time to spend in George
Town, but it passed quickly and we had a great time.
After the Cunards left on the seventh, we were ready to
move on but we got an email message from our friends on
LEGARIS the morning we had planned on leaving, saying
they would be there in a couple of days, so we decided
to wait for them. They came in Sunday night.
We did the mandatory Chat-N-Chill burgers on Volleyball
Beach with them, caught a concert there by
Eileen Quinn,
a cruiser since 1994 who writes songs about the
lifestyle, hit the ocean-side beach, and Exuma Markets
for a re-provisioning. We had sushi on ZIA with
the last of our Wahoo and the girls got to drink the
sparkling grape juice we have in stock for a special
occasion. The sushi was my best effort yet, so I
was psyched. The key is the rice. If the
rice is good, the sushi will be
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good as well. I have never been good at cooking rice
but luckily I am getting the hang of it.
Georg and Nathalie really enjoyed it and we had the
benefit of picking their brains on our upcoming travels
in Europe. They are from Palma de Mallorca, a city
in the Balearic Islands off Spain's east coast. We
have been toying with the idea of wintering in Spain,
and they are full of information for us. For one,
Barcelona is too cold to live on the boat in the winter.
Secondly, if we want to try to get the kids into a local
school so they can work on their Spanish, we can't do it
in Barcelona. They will wind up speaking Catalan,
which is another language entirely. I never would
have thought of that! So they recommend either
Seville, or, better yet, Palma! They can set us up
with a place for our boat and will be there to show us
around. We are still working out the school part
of it. They speak Mallorcin in Mallorca, but
Nathalie is sure that there is a Spanish language school
that we will be able to get the girls into. We are
very excited at the prospect of them getting a solid
basis in Spanish, even if only for a few months.
We would probably stay put for the months of October
through March, so they would have a good six months of
exposure. We ordered up the Rosetta Stone Spanish
lessons and are going to get started as soon as
possible. You never know, maybe even Joe and I
will learn to get by.
We
pulled out of George Town on Wednesday morning. It
was dead calm so we were facing a motor the whole 50
miles north to Staniel Cay. Although we would have
preferred to sail, we did enjoy the side benefit of
experiencing the amazingly clear waters as we left our
anchorage. We all marveled at the clarity and
color. At fifty feet, you could clearly see the
rocks, seaweed and contours of the bottom. It was
breathtaking.
My
hopes of catching a fish to refill our depleted freezer
supply were quickly answered. Bruce brought us a
nice stash of cedar plugs, and we got a lucky hit on the
blue one: a wahoo. Although it wasn't as big as
our last one,
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it
was just as tasty!
The trip north was otherwise uneventful, although
negotiating the cut into Staniel Cay was rather
exciting. The current was running very strong and
the passage was narrow and strewn with rocky reefs.
We were on pins and needles, hoping that our electronic
charts which had proven to be extremely accurate in
George Town, were as accurate further north.
We dropped the hook, cleaned up and headed to LEGARIS
for fish kebobs. Yum. Something about
catching your own food makes it taste so much better!
Staniel Cay's claim to fame is Thunderball Grotto.
It is a cave that opens up in the middle of one of these
.
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landmasses. The reef is amazing. Full of
colorful coral and teeming with fish of all shapes,
sizes and colors. It is the best snorkeling we
have seen yet. It is also the site where the 007
movie "Thunderball" was filmed.
The other popular attraction here are the "wild" pigs
that inhabit Big Majors Cay just around the corner.
Yes, pigs!
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They come out to greet you in hopes of a handout.
We didn't have the foresight to bring any food with us,
but it was fun to see nonetheless. In fact, the
dogs on a nearby boat got so excited seeing the pigs
walking around that one of them fell off the bow in its
barking frenzy. The owners were not onboard and we
doubted the poodle's ability to get back onboard.
We watched it for a while and went over to see if we
could help. The poor thing was swimming all over
the place and we were worried that it would tire itself
out and drown before the owners returned. I
finally jumped in the water and swam it back to the
boat. With Nathalie's help we got it onboard.
Normally, you would never get on someone's boat without
them present, but in this case we felt it would be okay.
I wonder what kind of story the owners will hear once
they return!
We
are making plans with LEGARIS about our next
destination. We have loads of time before we have
to be in Marsh Harbor to meet the Rezvanis. There
are a ton of great spots to explore between here and
there. The Bahamas are truly spectacular. No
wonder so many cruisers never make it any farther than
this!
All our best to all of you,
Christy, Joe, Cassie and Juliana
Next entry
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Many thanks to our
friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up
the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
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