BahamasCaribbeanCruisingWorking on the boat

Sharks, pigs, and caves – what else could you ask for?

By January 23, 2011 No Comments

Well here we are at the end of another week. I am anchored in between Big and Little Major Spot waiting for a front to pass tonight. This anchorage is near Staniel Cay and I saw the swimming pigs and Thunderball Cave, along with the town itself, yesterday. The town was nice and the yacht club took my large bag of trash for $5 (this is one of the things you have to manage on a boat). The pigs do swim out to you, but only about 40 feet from shore. They are kind of aggressive when they get to you and you have to be careful with your fingers and the dinghy when you feed them carrots. The cave was the site of the James Bond film in the 60’s. It was fun because it had 5-6 entrances to come and go, but I thought the cave structure was better at Rocky Dundas (pictured) where I went on Monday.

When I was at Rocky Dundas I had this perfect anchorage at Fowl Cay and then a boat came and anchored next to me for the night. It turned out to be cool, because I met Tyler and Michelle from Alida. They came over for dinner and then rafted up to me for the next two nights about three miles away at Pipe Cay.

I left Fowl Cay at noon on Tuesday, after I had cut out some non structural and non visible fiberglass so I could get the back off my windlass (the motor that pulls up the anchor and chain). Every now and then it does not want to work so I got to the connections and found one wire was loose. By the time I had it fixed so I did not have to pull the anchor up by hand any more (I did for three days) there were two more boat next to me. Defiantly time to find a new anchorage.

Like I said earlier, I was anchored at Pipe Cay on Tuesday and Wednesday with Alida raft up to me. We went to Compass Cay in my dinghy because the guide book says they have a nice happy hour to watch the sunset. Well there was no bar or happy hour and the marina wanted $8 a person to land. We said we would buy a beer out of the cooler instead and they said that would be fine. The sunset was pretty spectacular and they had 10 or so pet nurse sharks you can swim with and pet. We also took a trip down Pipe Creek which was great because there is a channel with shallows and small islands all through it. The colors were unbelievable. It is a place you have to see because pictures do not do it justice.  We even got to see some flotsam artwork (pictured).

After the dinghy ride Tyler and I went spear fishing. We killed four lionfish in a 100 yard area. These things are from the pacific and are taking over…so kill as many as you want, but be careful because they have poisonous spines in their fins. They were tasty but not as good as the trigger fish we got.

On Thursday morning Alida left to go twice as far as I was going for the day, but I wanted to get the oil changed in both engines first and that brings us back to the beginning of this blog.

Until next week have a great week, because I will :).

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