Sailing Ohana

The famous Bahamian swimming pigs live on Staniel Cay. Tourist boats come by all day to feed them and cruisers like us save our kitchen scraps for them. Spencer bonded with a couple of them and was proud to introduce the big daddy pig to a tourist boat as they pulled up.

Staniel has a yacht club/marina, a couple of tiny grocery stores, and some lovely beaches, so we hung out there for a couple of days. Jackson and Oliver from Grace are working with Mike, Oliver’s dad, on “winging” and trying to Hydrofoil, and Spencer and Elliot continue to build epic sand structures and play, play, play.

The boys are becoming more independent as they explore on the paddleboard and practice driving the dinghy. They take the hand-held VHF radio so that we can communicate. There is an impressive 80′ luxury sailing catamaran that has been at a few anchorages with us, that the boys refer to “The Tank”. They decided to finally go check it out on the paddleboard. We later found out that it was hosting Paris Hilton for her birthday. We ended up hanging out on the beach with the crew one day and they took photos with Morris, who continues to be a celebrity.

My nerves were tested as we went to explore what’s called “Thunderball Grotto”, an ocean cave that has been featured in several movies, including a James Bond movie. We went at high slack tide because it can have a serious current, and low tide would have been in really low light. Unfortunately, that meant the opening to get into the cave via snorkeling was so small that we initially didn’t even see it. The only other way to get in is to dive under the cave wall (which takes about 7-10 seconds) and pop up inside the cave. I chose the first option and it turned out totally fine even though I felt pretty claustrophobic. The Grotto has lots of little caverns and tunnels branching off from the main cave which the boys wanted to explore until the realized some were totally underwater and others had air. Gorgeous snorkeling but I definitely breathed a sigh of relief when we got back in the dinghy. We went to the yacht club in our mostly wet clothing and had a nice lunch outside. Going out to a restaurant is such a luxurious experience when you are traveling around remote, mostly uninhabited islands.

We walked a couple of miles to the grocery store and happily over-paid for some fresh produce and Klondike Bars that were slightly squished but cold and delicious.