May 22, 2009
May 21, 2009: We left Sampson Cay about 1p.m. in pouring rain which continued the whole journey and throughout the rest of the day and off and on most of the night. We arrived about 3p.m. but spent about an hour trying to find a good place to anchor. We were all drenched! It is not easy to dry out yourself, wet clothes, and the boat when it constantly rains. We anchored in an area which has strong current. About 7p.m. the anchor alarm kept going off so we pulled up our anchor, a CQR, and Charlie changed the anchor to a fortress which we had bought and had stored on the boat, and we anchored again in a slightly different spot. We were lucky that it wasn't raining during that hour. We then finally ate dinner. I kept checking the chartplotter tracking of our anchor. It was not the normal arc one usually sees but an erratic plot due to the strong effect of the current. However we successfully made it through the night with no more anchor alarm going off.
May 22, 2009: Most of the rain was gone and we had sunny skies most of the day. We went into The Staniel Cay Yacht Club dinghy dock and then went exploring for a grocery store. We had been told to go to the "Blue" store instead of the "Pink" store. We actually went to both and the "blue" store was better stocked which is not saying much as neither had much of what we needed. The small store at Sampson Cay Marina was almost better than either at Staniel Cay. We did stop at a Bread Shop, met Brenda the baker and bought some of her delicious smelling Bahamian bread. We bought some banana nut bread at one of the stores. We wandered around this part of Staniel Cay visiting a boutique near the Happy People Marina and restaurant and also an unopened art gallery housed in a purple one room structure with lilac trim. Back at the Yacht Club we tried their drinks. We visited the dive shop to research about the "Thunderball Grotto" used in the James Bond movie "Thunderball". The best time is at slack tide which today was between 12:30-1:30. So, back to the boat to get our fins and masks ready to go snorkel nearby. Charlie and Marilyn went first. Then Charlie and I traded places. The fish were beautiful as was some of the small corals we saw. The tide began to turn and the current became too strong for me so we returned to our big boat for lunch. Later in the afternoon we went around Big Major Spot to the "Pig Beach" where pigs come off the beach to eat food brought by dingy boaters. We only saw one pig which was sleeping. He finally woke up
May 22, 2009: Most of the rain was gone and we had sunny skies most of the day. We went into The Staniel Cay Yacht Club dinghy dock and then went exploring for a grocery store. We had been told to go to the "Blue" store instead of the "Pink" store. We actually went to both and the "blue" store was better stocked which is not saying much as neither had much of what we needed. The small store at Sampson Cay Marina was almost better than either at Staniel Cay. We did stop at a Bread Shop, met Brenda the baker and bought some of her delicious smelling Bahamian bread. We bought some banana nut bread at one of the stores. We wandered around this part of Staniel Cay visiting a boutique near the Happy People Marina and restaurant and also an unopened art gallery housed in a purple one room structure with lilac trim. Back at the Yacht Club we tried their drinks. We visited the dive shop to research about the "Thunderball Grotto" used in the James Bond movie "Thunderball". The best time is at slack tide which today was between 12:30-1:30. So, back to the boat to get our fins and masks ready to go snorkel nearby. Charlie and Marilyn went first. Then Charlie and I traded places. The fish were beautiful as was some of the small corals we saw. The tide began to turn and the current became too strong for me so we returned to our big boat for lunch. Later in the afternoon we went around Big Major Spot to the "Pig Beach" where pigs come off the beach to eat food brought by dingy boaters. We only saw one pig which was sleeping. He finally woke up
and swam out to the dingy for food. We were told by others that there were 5 pigs earlier in the morning.
We continued along Big Major Spot finding another smaller beach to stop at and explore. We passed the Fowl Cay Resort and continued our circumnavigation
of Big Majors Spot. We cleaned up and went to the Cafe Thunderball for a dinner of Bar-B-Q ribs and chicken. We met many other sailors up there including a couple with a Tayana 42 with a center cockpit. They are on their way back to Tortola where they used to live. We also met a local author who lives in a house on the topof the hill above the Cafe Thunderball. Marilyn and I both bought books from her. So ends our exciting busy day. The picture at the top is of the anchorage from Cafe Thunderball. Blue Horizon is the middle boat.
We plan to proceed 10 miles to Black Point Settlement on Great Guana Cay tomorrow and then to Georgetown the next day.
Love the swimming pigs?!
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