We are in Staniel Cay which is a lovely little island with about 100 permanent residents living on it. There is the Staniel Cay Yacht Club which is a great island club, low key and very comfortable with flags and burgees hanging from the rafters for the past 30 years and a pool table which the kids have fun playing on. The club has not changed in 13 years since we were last here and that is great! There is free wifi available (which is unheard of in the islands) so you sit at the bar buy a kalik(beer) or rum punch and are able to surf the internet! great! The food is delicious and priced just right. Most of the restaurants are extremely pricey but the club is not out to gouge us cruisers and as a result it is a very popular hang out! Staniel Cay has 3 small grocery stores, the pink store, the blue store and isles general store. I don't think the pink or blue store have changed in 13 years either! The mail boat comes to the island every Tuesday so this is when the stores have fresh produce available. We were desperate for fresh supply so it was great to get some bananas, oranges(75 cent/each), lettuce, tomatoes and cabbage! We also scored some milk and 3 loaves of homemade bread! A grocery store run consists of having to dinghy to the store which does have a dinghy dock, the store was locked so we went next door to their house to get someone. We dropped off our propane tank to get refilled(for our oven), I dropped off 2 bags of laundry and picked up some fresh items at the store. The store did have ice cream so we all treated ourselves to some! Then back into the dinghy and home, it all takes about one hour or more to pick up groceries. That is if the store is open because "island time" is not an exact science!

Staniel Cay is the site of Thunderball Grotto. This is where the 1964 James Bond movie "Thunderball" was fillmed . The grotto is an underwater cave, not a spooky , scary , dark underwter cave, it has an opening above so beams of sunlight shine through and light up the inside. The fish will dart at you when you jump in the water because they think you have food. To get inside the cave you swim under a rocky ledge. Schools of Sargent Majors (small yellow and black striped fish) will surround you when you are swimming and touch you! John was laughing so hard underwater because the fish were pressing their lips against his mask! Once inside the cave the colors are spectacular because the sunlight from above is shooting down through the water. The colors of the corals are magnificient. There was staghorn coral, elkhorn coral, flower coral, purple fan coral, green coral and more! Menno and Daniel saw a huge barracuda swimming around the outside of the cave! It was an amazing dive. The movies Splash and Into the Blue have also used this cave in their films.

Photo is of John holding a small barracuda, we kept it to use for bait, not good eating.