Now languishing at anchor in the Bahamas off HIghbourne Cay, a private island that allows us to go ashore to use the marina shop. It's a very fine shop and has very fine prices, like every place in the Bahamas, but when Tony's beer runs low we must grit our teeth and buy a slab. $4.00 dollars a tin but only $65 if you buy a whole slab. A bargain. We'd quite like to go for a walk too but at $25.00 each for the privilege we will swim instead.
The Bahamas feel like the most dangerous place we've visited so far. Not because of the reef strewn water, not because of the tidal rages in the cuts, not because of the sharks clearly visible in the shallow waters or the danger of passing out after seeing the prices but because of the mad powerboaters. There are major routes from waypoint to waypoint that pass through deeper water, by deeper I mean more than 2 metres, and it seems that the powerboats just plot them in and jump on the throttle then go and read a book. When we now see them on the horizon we keep a very close watch to see if there's any indication that they've seen us. We now offset our course so that we're not exactly on the routes and this works as they just blindly whizz from waypoint to waypoint regardless.
The little islands here are idyllic. When you get further away from Nassau beyond the reach of the powerboats it's just perfect. We anchored off Conception Island, an uninhabited nature reserve, and went to the creek in our dinghy to see the turtles. Getting into the creek is only possible at high water, even in a shallow draft dinghy. You have to thread your way through the reef in about a foot of water and then keep off the sandbanks but the water is so clear that it's possible to see you way through if you take it slowly. We pottered up the creek admiring the scenery which was quite beautiful. All very low with lots of little channels and every shade of blue and green in the water and nothing to be heard apart from a bird or two and the murmur of the ripples . About a mile up river we spotted a few turtles but could really only see dark shapes as the water was a bit sandy and not very clear. They could see us though and quickly swam away. Not wanting to disturb them and thinking the water was dropping we made our way back to the entrance, hoping to get across the reef without having to get out and walk. I was Katherine Hepburn and Tony was Humphrey Bogart and our little dinghy was the African Queen. We threaded our way back down the creek and noticed that there was a little less water than when we went up. I lay across the bow to lift the outboard a little further out of the water, trailing my fingers in the sea when I saw a dark shape, not a nice friendly round turtle shape but a sinister long pointy shark shape about 3 metres long and about four feet away from us. I was now in Jaws, about to be attacked by a Great White. Fortunately on closer inspection, and it did get close, it looked more like a nurse shark. Being a bit of a genius I suggested that we follow the shark out as its draft was about the same as ours. It obligingly made its way through the reef, twisting and turning and going slowly enough for us to follow it. We were so close to it we could see the little cleaner fish on its back. We whizzed back to our boat and as we were getting on board I noticed a sinister shape in the water. Was it the same shark? Had it followed us this time?
The other thing to do on Conception is go for a walk along the north beach. The sand is pink at the edge of the turquoise sea and just takes your breath away. At the end of the walk is a cliff that you can climb up by hanging on to the handy tattered rope that hangs down from a rock above. Once you've hauled yourself up and you're on the top you can see the multi-coloured coral heads under the sea, it's just gorgeous. Back down the rope and time to float about in the water, keeping a bit of a lookout for that sinister shape.
Moving on, our aim was to see the famous Bay of Pigs. Not the place associated with Cuba but Big Majors, an anchorage off another beautiful beach with the added attraction of wild swimming pigs. They are big and like to be fed. We watched them running around on the beach, chasing a few people who had foolishly arrived without a snack or two for them, but as they're pretty well fed pigs they can't run very fast. Gathering all my veggie peelings together we dinghied in, slowing down as we realised just how big these pigs were. They were sitting around under a tree in the shade but as soon as they saw us coming they rushed the beach. Call me a coward but I have a healthy respect for large wild animals. I decided to take the photos and Tony dropped the food into their obligingly open jaws. They swam right up to the boat and opened wide. I've never looked down a pigs throat before, but this is why we live like this, for new experiences.
If you go to see the pigs then right around the corner is Thunderball Cave. Like my friend Bob said, it would be beautiful, with gorgeous coral, amazing light and masses of reef fish, if only those lovely girls in bikinis didn't keep swimming in front of it.