Going with the Flow



On our way to BLACK POINT SETTLEMENT- GREAT GUANA CAY, the sailing conditions were finally amenable to troll for dinner.  I am always the first one to select a lure and put out the pole and this day was no different.  Exit Strategy was moving along quite comfortably with a speed that ranged between six to seven knots.  ZZZZINNNG!  We got a hit!  Although I was closest to the rod mounted on the portside rail, I insisted that Captain Dan reel in our catch.  I did this because I had been on a losing streak since arriving in the Bahamas in late February.  I can only surmise that the game are feistier up here because I'd been unable to land the last four out of four fish we hooked.  Danny gladly took the rod in his strong arms and kept the line taut, eventually hauling in a beautiful yellow fin tuna.

 

 

This yellow fin tuna weighed 15 lbs. after being gutted and bled.







Within a few hours, we maneuvered through DOTHAM CUT and dropped the hook at Black Point Settlement.  The wind howled almost constantly at 25 knots, gusting to 30 during our entire stay.  We went ashore a few times to amble along the worn roads and see what the island was like.  Black Point Settlement is the kind of place where it is not unusual to select your own chicken parts after the grocer gives you a twenty pound frozen mass of chicken legs to take outside, so you can drop it onto the cement and bag your selection.  It is the kind of place where the islanders give you free fruit from the few producing trees they have.  Black Point Settlement is the kind of place where everyone greets you warmly and then some- like the retired police chief- invite you into his home to hear about his career and view his medals. 

This was the first time we were able to see some examples of "pothole" gardening that we had previously read about in the guidebooks.  After that experience, we began to notice these potholes all over the place on every cay we visited.  There seemed to be a great deal of half finished or abandoned building sites down every path at Black Point. It concerned us when we often found these potholes (without a garden) smack in the middle of a building's foundation. How safe is that?! 

 

Pothole gardening

There really wasn't much to keep us at Black Point Settlement, so as soon as the weather improved we continued on to STANIEL CAY.  Does that name ring a bell for you?   Staniel Cay is known to tourists for its swimming PIGS, although the pigs are actually located on the nearby cay called BIG MAJORS SPOT.  It appears that  the pigs are one of the biggest attractions in this area of the Bahamas.  However, swimming pigs were NOT on our list of things to see.  In fact, Staniel Cay wasn't even on our float plan until the starter battery on Exit Strategy began to show signs of imminent death.  The folks in Black Point Settlement assured us that we could get a new battery quicker in Staniel Cay because there was a marina there. Lucky for us- they were right.

 

How many conch can YOU find?  (There are about 20 live ones in photo.)



Bahamian houses in the Exumas were colorful and usually 2-story.

 

Staniel Cay is ten times more touristy than Black Point Settlement largely due to the swimming pigs, the marina, and THUNDERBALL GROTTO.  The James Bond movie, THUNDERBALL, was partially filmed here in 1965 and literally put Staniel Cay on the map.  Since we were "in the neighborhood" we decided to take in the site one afternoon. We could see daytripper boats coming and going to the grotto from our anchorage and tried to time our sortie to avoid the crowd, but that didn't work.  We enjoyed a brief moment alone inside the grotto and then swam out through an alternate underwater tunnel when a large group entered the main opening.  A short time later, we swam back inside and noticed a lion fish, whose spines are highly toxic, slowly swimming beneath the finned feet of people.  That looked like an accident waiting to happen to us.



We had just swam out of a tunnel to escape the Thunderball Grotto tourists.



Coral wall at main entrance to the grotto.



LION FISH (bottom to left of center) a few feet below unknowing tourists!