We had our first sail on the bank (shallow) side of the
islands, the water was almost perfectly flat as the wind was blowing easterly
and the islands providing shelter. Big
Major Spot is only a few miles north but on route we passed various small
islands, some completely dessert with just beautiful white andy beaches others
with a solitary luxury house, lots of the islands here are privately owned,
that is how the other half live!
Big Major Spot is famous for the pigs. Not just any pigs,
they are swimming pigs, once they see the dingy approach they must know you are
likely to feed them and they haul themselves off the beach and into the water. All very funny although not quite so funny
once you are stopped in the dingy trying to feed them as they are quite
excitable and really big!
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| Swimming Pigs! |
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| Cheeky seagull hitching a ride |
Look at them go!
On day 2 we saved up all our peelings, banana skins and
anything else we could find and put it in the bucket, Mark did not even have
time to empty on the sand before the barged him out of the way and demolished
everything, including the bucket.
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| Beating the bucket! |
Staniel Cay is a short dingy ride away Big Major Spot and it
more of a holiday island. There is a small
yacht club/marina where a few boats were moored, this is also a popular place
for watching the sharks. The local
fishing boats gut their daily catch on the shore side and the sharks take
advantage of anything spilt into the water.
We had only seen one shark since arriving in the Bahamas, the
night before after we had just been having a dip off the back of boat one swam
under the boat and it must have been at least 6 feet!
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| Around 20 nurse sharks just under the surface looking for scraps |
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| He doesn't look too big in the photo but he was bigger than Amanda - not that she got too close |
The island is still pretty sleepy even thought there are
some holiday cottages and there is an airfield with direct flights from the US
daily but the island is still very isolated, most people get around in golf
buggy or on foot, the supermarkets are reliant on the mailboat which arrives
weekly, when we arrived at the end of that week the only veg we found was past
their best onions, no fruit, no bread, very little of anything and what you can
geet is very expensive. We have
experienced difficulties in provisioning since we reach the Caribbean but the Bahamas has been the most difficult yet, lucky
we topped up with packets, tin and all the staples in Puerto
Rico. All of this aside the island was very cute, loved the roadsigns (see photo), most of the holiday rentals were small wooden cottages and the people couldn't have been nicer - apart from getting ripped off at the fuel dock for water!
Just off Staniel Cay is Thunderball grotto, this was the
cave which featured in the James Bond Thunderball film. After just seeing all the sharks at the dock
it feels a little odd going snorkelling but this was the first really chance
since arriving. You can get into the
cave by swimming through the rocks and it opens up above you, there are lots of
fish to be seen in the cave and outside the Sergeant Majors must be used to
getting feed as the surround you!
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| Looking our of the cave at all of the fish at the entrance |
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| Mark making friends with the Sergeant Majors |
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