Thunderball Grotto
23 February 2013 | Staniel Cay, Exumas, Bahamas
Donna
We paid $10 for 24 hours of Internet, or 200 Mb, whichever comes first. Most of the 24 hours the Internet has been pretty bad. Here is the disclaimer on the home page, how can I complain???
This service uses a satellite uplink for all traffic. On its best day, it will seem slow compared to any land-based service. It's 22 thousand miles to the satellite, which means it's 44 thousand miles before your request hits the Internet, and 44 thousand for the data to come back. No matter how you slice it, 88 thousand miles may take more than a few seconds for a response. So remember, you're in the Central Exumas with the most beautiful water and Cay's anywhere on the planet. Fast Internet is available at most office buildings and cubicles in the states. Would you really want to trade where you are for a cubicle?
Today we went to snorkel in Thunderball Grotto. It is just a few hundred yards from where we anchored. It's like a cave. You swim under a two foot high opening, at low tide, into a large room, the size of a large swimming pool, with a ceiling about 20 feet high with an opening on the top to let the sun in. It has a hole on the other side that you can swim out to snorkel the reef. There were lots of people there, including a couple of tour boats. We took some bread crumbs to feed the fish and were very popular with the angel fish at least for the few seconds it took for it all to be gone.. There were a lot of fish inside the grotto. The picture above is taken inside. It's where they filmed the James Bond movie Thunderball. Some scenes from Spash were also filmed here. It was very cool being in there but the reef outside was equally cool. Lots of different kinds of fish swim all around. We got some OK pictures which we will post when we get real Internet. Of course none really do it justice. You have to see it to believe it!
We are getting ready to leave for Black Point now. We will probably stay there through Monday night. Hopefully there is a restaurant in our future!