Staniel Cay and Big Majors

4/15 - 4/17/16    24 10.411N    76 26.840W    Staniel Cay    8.7NM
                          24 11.350N    76 27.529W    Big Majors Spot    1.7NM

Note: We will be moving to the Exuma Park area and will not have cell phone and or internet coverage for a while.  Leonard 4/18/2016

We had enough wind to sail to Staniel Cay and found a spot to anchor off the Yacht Club to go ashore.  With a sand bar on one side and the channel on the other, it's not a great place to spend the night, but works fine in settled weather for spending a few hours ashore.  At $2.50/foot a night, it's been years since we stayed at the marina which is affiliated with the resort.  They've added a new fuel dock, separate from the slips.  Prior to smart phones, the bar was a convenient place to access the internet for the price of a couple of drinks. 

On our walk, we noticed more construction than elsewhere in the Exumas, with a number of new homes that look like winter retreats for snow birds.  It's possible to make connections to Nassau and the states from the airport, and cay still has the panache from the James Bond days, although Club Thunderball has been closed for years.  Other than a new laundromat/liquor store combo, not much had changed in town - which consists of a church, a couple of grocery stores, a bakery, some boutiques and eateries. 

We hadn't picked up a map before heading out, and after getting to the airport, we dug out the cell phone to find the road to the beach and headlands overlooking the sound and entrance.  By the time we got to the sound, it was high tide and not much beach to walk, so we headed back.  Several folks offered us  rides on their golf carts, which we declined since we wanted exercise.  Back at the marina, we watched the guides clean the catch of the day - a number of big mahi.  The cleaning station draws sharks and rays (and a crowd of onlookers) waiting for tidbits to be tossed into the water.  It was interesting to see 6 or 7 good sized sharks lined up side by side on the step just below the cleaning station, patiently waiting, and the resultant thrashing when the carcass was tossed.  A couple of girls were taking pictures, and warned to stand back, I think mostly to avoid getting splashed or hit by a thrashing tail.

Beach along the sound at Staniel Cay

Back on Antares, we motored over to the NE corner of the anchorage by Big Majors Spot and Fowl Cay, a good place to be when the wind switched to the N.  Just after we set the anchor, I noticed a large school of fingerling fish swimming just below the surface by the boat.  A few minutes later, there was a lot of splashing as a school of much larger yellow snappers arrived looking for dinner.  While there may be safety in numbers, the snappers did a good job of culling the little guys, making a number of passes by the boat.

Yellow snappers feeding on minnows

We had arranged to meet Doug White who has been helping Beth Kohler and Todd Toesing (LCYC friends) take their new (to them) catamaran to the Bahamas, and planned to head S from Nassau Saturday morning and join us at Big Majors.  Unfortunately they'd torn their main sail on the trip to the Bahamas, and were further delayed by depth gauge problems and fan belt failures as they motor sailed across the Yellow Bank.  A call from Doug Saturday evening said they'd stopped at  Highborne Cay, and were returning to Nassau Sunday to pick up their sail from the loft, so I doubt we'll connect.  Doug planned to fly out of Nassau Tuesday, and Todd and Beth are pushing to get to Georgetown where they'll store the boat - they have a schedule, but sailing and schedules rarely mesh, and their time is getting short.

Saturday turned out to be a much nicer day than forecast, so we took the dinghy around Big Majors, stopping at various beaches along the way and going past Thunderball Grotto.  It's a good sized island, and took a couple of hours with our beach stops.  The most famous beach, the 'pig beach', is where folks (including numerous tour boats guests) are greeted by the swimming pigs, looking for hand outs.  We anchored and watched as folks got into the water to feed the pigs and take selfies.  Getting up close and personal with 100# of pig wasn't very appealing to us, as they can be aggressive.  I'd seen 6 or 7of them waiting at the waters edge for dinghies to arrive during breakfast, but only a few were on the beach in the heat of the day.  Bette Reuter said they'd seen piglets when they were here, but they were smart enough to stay in the shade too.

Pink porkers on the beach - 

wonder if they ever appear on a menu as 'roast pig'

Selfies at the Pig Beach at Big Majors

One of the other beaches is the Pirate's Beach, complete with palm trees, a sunshade, chairs, games and a charcoal grill which gets crowded at cocktail time.  When we went ashore, a catamaran had anchored just off the beach, in waist deep water, to work on the hull and motors.  What the island doesn't have is any walking trails, and the beaches are all small. 

Captain resting in the shade a Pirates Beach

The anchorage filled by Saturday evening with everything from mega yachts to trawlers, and catamarans and monohulls of all sizes to sit out the weather.  The wind wasn't as strong as forecast (20-25 with gusts to 30) on Sunday, but the directions was correct - N - right on the nose for folks headed N.  We heard a warning on the VHF about transiting the cuts into the sound into the 6' seas on a falling tide.  In the past, Blue Yonder, one of the houses on a cay on the sound, used to give a daily weather and information broadcast for the boaters in the morning, but we haven't heard her the past couple of years.

Some of the fleet tucked in behind Big Majors

We'll see what the weather brings come morning.  At this point, we're considering all our options, waiting for a window to cross over to Eleuthera  later in the week and return back to the states through the Abacos (the northern route), or head for the Berries or Bimini on the NE winds (the southern route) and ride the gulf stream as far as conditions are favorable.  When we move, we will be out of cell range until we get to Eleuthera, or are near Highborne Cay.

Lynnea