Staniel's Cay

What do feral farm animals, James Bond, and poorly stocked grocery stores have in common? Staniel's Cay. We anchored in a crowded anchorage (east of big majors) in ten feet of agua. We had mega yachts and little power cruisers, to large sailboats and little ones. It was a scene.

First thing we did was take Dex to see the pigs. We started feeding these things carrots that managed to not mold for two months, very odd. They were so greedy, you had to watch they didn't take a finger with them. We pet the baby ones, and one of the big pigs almost drowned a baby one on purpose... pigs. One big pig took a charge at Dex and gave him a snort and a big chomp, Dex backed off, he knew they were gross carrots. Then Dex tried to chase the little pigs, while keeping a safe distance from the big ones. We put him on the dinghy. It's amazing how so many attractions here in the Bahamas deals with feeding things. Anyways, those were some greedy, spoilled, and very domesticated pigs. They would even swim out to boats trying to anchor and expect handouts, they were more agressive than the pan handlers in downtown Vancouver.

The next day we got up and dinghied over to Staniel's Cay, we were off to the store. We went to the big one first, but the proprietor was on a mid morning hiatus, so we left to walk around. There were too many grumpy north americans standing around complaining, come on it's an island.

We were impressed with the high level of airport security, a sign saying "keep off runway" we walked in to have a look, no one was around. Then we went to the blue store, it was fairly empty, Jennie and I were.starting to wonder what the locals eat. We got back to the dinghy, couldn't find free wifi and boated back over to the first store (we walked the first time) this time it was open and we bought a few essentials.

We got back to the boat and decided to visit the Thunderball Grotto, from a James Bond film, I think it was called Thunderball. We got there to see immense crowds of dinghys and speed boats. We tied up and I jumped in, there were so many fish, I popped my head up and said "too bad I didn't bring my spear." as a bit of a joke, there were a few to many neoprene fat fish floating around. This ten year old kid anchored in a speed boat while his parents or baby sitter was snorkeling said, "You're not allowed to fish here." Ten year olds these days, so conscious of the rules, what will be of our future. He also asked Jennie to fend off his boat from the seven dinghies tied to a mooring ball as he sat at the helm, what a puke. We swam it, and it was pretty cool, not as big as I thought it would be, but tons of fish. We came out and met another younger Canadian couple who spent 3 months cruising Cuba and loved it, they tore apart a lot of the hear say, and it sounds like a decent place to cruise on the cheap. Just as we were about to leave a 30ft scarab pulled up and tied to the dinghy mooring. A large black Bahamian started throwing fifty year old silicone sweet hearts off the boat, what a scene. One needed to float with a life jacket, I guess she lacked the floatation the others had.

Back at the boat we sat down and watched a movie until the sun went down, our plan was to burn some garbage at the fire pit on Pirates Beach. Well we popped our heads out to see people already there, so we threw in a few beers and headed over. They turned out to be a pretty roudy crowd, there was another couple who owned a Union, there must be something about people who own unions, maybe they have a high tolerance for pain, but it was a good time. We had to wait to burn our garbage, no need to add extra flavour to the burgers. We dinghied home a little buzzed. The next morning, feeling a bit rough, I got up and listened to the weather at 6:30 am. We decided to head down to Black Point.