As if Staniel Cay wasn't awesome enough! Right by the marina, there are a resident school of nurse sharks that just hang around all day long.
Thunderball Grotto
Honestly, Staniel Cay has been our favorite area in the Bahamas. It is so popular with tourists that they offer all the amenities you would like to have, while still being small enough that you feel isolated in paradise when anchored. There is also cell phone coverage here which makes accessing the internet possible while at anchor here.
Right next to Staniel Cay is the Thunderball Grotto, named so as it was the location for the underwater fight scene for the James Bond movie Thunderball.
The grotto is a beautiful cavern inside where the limestone has eroded away to create this huge cavern with an open skylight in the center. The best part about the grotto is actually what can be found beneath the surface.
The grotto is teeming with large fish that will swim right up to you as you swim. At the surface, large stripped fish will come right up to your hands and mask, but if you dive down, larger fish will be skirting along the bottom!
The grotto is best visited at low tide, and at slack water. At low tide, the ceiling is farther away, allowing you to snorkel without hitting your head. At slack water, there is less of a current ripping through which makes the entire experience easier to navigate.
We visited the grotto our first time at low tide and with a slight current. It was really fun and we spent a few hours swimming around this small area. It might seem like you could see it all in a few minutes, but the truth is every time you revisit a spot, something new will be swimming there.
We returned for our second grotto experience at high tide, and the current was a bit stronger. The rocks were closer to our heads and the current was very strong. We swam around for a little while but it wasn't as enjoyable.
If you visit the grotto, be sure to visit it at low tide and when the current is lighter,; you will have a magical time in there!
Bermuda
Hello! We are anchored in Bermuda in St. George, on the north end of the island. If you would like to meet up, please email us at riggingdr@gmail.com
We would love to meet the local readers of the blog!
Iguanas on Allen's Cay
The Bahamas are a magical place, each little island is an entirely different world from the last island you visited! On some islands,
One of the most northern islands in the Exumas is called Allen's Cay and is home to a population of iguanas. These iguanas live on the vegetation found locally on the island, but they are very willing to take handouts from local tourists that come to see them.
While we were on the island, Maddie was able to get some incredible pictures of the iguanas as they came out of the native plants and scampered along the beach!
After a while, some rather big iguanas came out to see what food was being handed out and puffed up to show off to the smaller iguanas.
He made his body very large and began strutting around the beach trying to scare off smaller iguanas that were around. Maddie insisted on tossing the food towards the smaller iguanas instead of directly feeding the big iguana.
The smaller iguanas would grab the lettuce and run away when the big iguana would come over to challenge them. Sometimes, the iguanas would drop their lettuce and the big iguana would take over the situation and chow down on the leafy goodness as the smaller iguanas watched.
After beating to windward for days, arriving on this magical island where random iguanas greet you on the beach as you make landfall was quite the experience!
Crew and Personal Effects
When you have crew join you for a period of time, they will surely bring their personal effects with them. Inevitably they will forget something when they leave the boat and return home or onto their next adventure.
What do you do with their personal belongings that they left on your boat? Do you use them? Do you throw them away? Are you responsible for the items? What if you see them again?
In short, anything that is left on the boat when they leave is now yours to deal with. You can choose to send it to them, use it, discard it, or sell it; the choice is yours.
If you see them again, you are not obligated to give them their items back, nor are you obligated to give them cash value for their item.
Hustlers (people who try to squeeze money out of other people) will be the only people who will cause you trouble in this situation. If they leave something and you are never planning on seeing them again, why should you carry their stuff around indefinitely in the hopes that you might, by chance, meet again?
When they see you in an anchorage, they will approach you and ask you for their belongings. When you tell them that you don't have it anymore, they will begin to make a scene and try to make you feel very uncomfortable. Then they will offer you a solution to your discomfort that will make everything "seem okay": Money.
The hustler will offer you to pay them for their personal items that they left on your boat that you discarded. You don't have their items anymore, so you can't give them back, but you need your money to cruise longer and pay for things on and around the boat. The hustler doesn't care about you, they merely want your money because this is how they operate.
To quell the situation, all you need to do is recite the following:
"You abandoned the item. I salvaged the item. When you departed, our relationship ended and I owe you nothing."
If the hustler tries to talk to another member on the boat and guilts them into agreeing on a price or the payment of money, they will bring up that discussion now.
"But your wife said that you guys would give me money for it."
This is when you get to play the Captain Card!
"I am the captain, my word is the word of the boat. I didn't make any arrangements so no arrangements have been made."
At this point, they will become angry, irate, and even rude! There is no good in continuing the conversation as they won't stop until they get what they want and you aren't going to give them what they want. This is when you say:
"We're done here. There is nothing more to discuss."
They won't like this fact, but this is how the system works and they can't fight it. If they won't leave, you can always call the police to have them dealt with, but usually they will leave at this point.
