We got a decent wind for sailing part of the time, AWESOME!!!!
The quietness of sailing resulted in another strange phenomenon: our cat emerged into the cockpit while we were underway! That's a first. She looked pretty much at ease there, too:
We arrived and anchored beside Charisma and aft of S/V Free Spirit in 9 feet over deep white sand, just W of Pig Beach on Big Majors Spot (good holding close to Staniel Cay). as per his usual safety-mindedness, Derek dove the anchor:
He swims pretty fast, so it doesn't take long!
The water was 79F, gorgeous as you see, and he said the anchor buried itself with utter perfection, upright and sunk into the sand so deeply that only the end of the shaft where the chain attaches was out of the sand... Big Majors Spot, west side, off Pig Beach (where the pigs come running to see what you brought them and swim out to your dinghy if they are really feeling peckish!) is a gorgeous anchorage with lots of room and great holding. Wouldn't be so good in a westerly.
We were so happy to see Chris and Marisa again! We had a chili dinner in the cockpit to celebrate. Stayed up late by cruiser standards (though not by astronomer standards) :-)
The next day we went into town to the markets, to check out Staniel Cay (rhymes with Brie), a place with more megayachts than we've seen in one spot before. A place that was a lot less developed last time we were here, 17 years ago. We also took Grant to snorkel the cave, although we'd heard that it gets crowded now. Again, last time we had it to ourselves most of the time.
Chris and Marisa tell us that if we show up at slack tide and wait until the current starts to get strong, we will have the place more to ourselves as fewer people want to swim against the currents. So we did that, but I will have to post the pictures later... different camera.
The walk to the Isles store crossed the Bonefish Creek Bridge:
It was full of bonefish:
But look only....
Down at the Government Dock, a fisherman had brought in his catch and was cleaning it, and the rays and sharks knew about it immediately:
And in the evening, the cruisers all got together at the instigation of Charisma (of course!). There were good stories:
And some serious stories (Marisa and Meryl got to know each other, too!):
And some new friends, Marcia and Alan and Julie and Hunter. Here are Marcia and Julie: