Staniel Snorkeling

We arrived in Staniel Cay Wednesday and anchored off Big Majors. There are very few islands in the Exumas that have everything you need to provision at one place and since Black Point has laundry and water but not fuel and only limited groceries (groceries come in once a week on the mailboat and they are usually gone within a day) we had more chores in Staniel to get done before Verne flew in. Getting a few groceries and gas would usually take about 20 min but in the Bahamas things happen slowly. Which is why you love it right? Three and a half hours after we started, we were stocked up.

By then, we headed to the airport in the dinghy to pick Verne up. You can essentially dinghy across the street and there is no building- just a runway that people are usually walking down. We got back to the boat and remembered a great drift snorkel Van on Gratitude told us about. We called Ted and Maggie to see if they wanted to join us. Ted was up for it so we dinghied to Fowl Cay where the current was swiftly moving through at probably six or seven knots. The colors of the reef were amazing even in the late afternoon without the light of the sun. There were groupers and Queen Angels, parrot fish and tons of sand dollars. We put ourselves closer to the current and swishhh - it was like a roller coaster ride. It took about 15 seconds to move 100 yards. There were burbles and eddies and standing waves. It was incredible!!

The next day we headed straight for the grocery store to fill our propane (again only done one day a week and that's if you ask real sweet.) She said leave the tank and maybe she would have it filled by 3:30. Later in the day we took Verne to Thunderball Grotto for the experience (see previous post.) Ted and Maggie showed us some great reefs around the grotto that we missed the first time and tunnels and caves that are like nooks and crannies. It started getting a bit crowded so we headed back to the grocery store and the lady said Maggie's propane was ready but mine wouldn't be until 6. She liked Maggie! Since the grocery store is about a 2 mile dinghy ride we went over to the yacht club for some Kaliks and fries. Don't you know when we showed back up at 5:40 to pick up the propane - the doors were locked and no one around. We paced and knocked on a couple local houses where we got a shout back that she will be there in a minute. At about 6:15 and covered head to toe in NoSeeUm bites, we had a full tank of propane.

Waiting for propane