Day 164, Year 10: The Fab Five
Date: Monday, March 23, 2015
Weather: Partly Cloudy, Winds SSW 15
Location: Anchored Off Big Majors Spot Near Staniel Cay, Exumas
It feels like we are back ‘home’. We left Staniel Cay last Thursday to do our exploration of the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park and now we are back. So this is ‘home’ for now. We have had a fabulous five days (henceforth known as The Fab Five) of exploring on land and in the sea and we celebrated tonight by having dinner at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club. Kevin and Claire insisted on taking us out and it was a great way to end our adventures together. Mark and Claire had the catch of the day, Mahi, and Kevin and I had the local lobster tails. There are two seatings for dinner, one at 6:30 and one at 8:30. We opted for the early dinner. The dinner is served in courses–bread, then soup followed by salad, then the main entree, and finally dessert. The food was very good and the atmosphere is very pleasant. Thank you, Kevin and Claire. But after arrival here and before dinner, we managed to find time to get in one last snorkel. Before taking off, we first had to check in with the Yacht Club to make sure we can get gasoline tomorrow as we have managed to go through two 5-gallon jerry jugs in five days. We have traveled a lot of miles in the ye old trusty dinghy and thankfully there is gasoline to be had to replenish our supply. Once we knew we could get fuel tomorrow morning, we then took off from the anchorage here and traveled north to North Gaulin Cay. There are two little islands to the east of North Gaulin and we snorkeled from the northern most point and worked our way south close to shore. There was scattered coral, but Claire and I delighted in following the coastline and observing all the little creatures along the way. At one point I heard Claire call my name. I came up to see what she wanted . . . just in case it was another shark warning. But this time it was a stingray warning. “Judy, there’s a big stingray right under you.” I looked down and turned on the GoPro video to document the ray as I swam along with him. It is always a thrill to swim along with the big guys.
We have not heard from Lee and Lynda, so we are assuming they are still down in Black Point. We will take Kevin and Claire to the airport (via dinghy) at 7:15 in the morning. We will then wait for the grocery stores to open and do a little food shopping, go to the Yacht Club to buy dinghy fuel, and then head back to Windbird. We will sail south to Black Point and hopefully catch up with Sea Turtle. We heard from Constance today and they are still in Cambridge Cay. They are planning to leave when stronger winds come from the SE on Wednesday. But if not, maybe we’ll see them again when we head back there on Thursday or Friday. The weather guides your travel decisions when you are out here cruising. So you make plans and then see what happens.
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| 150323 Day 164 Bahamas–Staniel Cay |
