A couple of days anchored in a bright swath of sand just south of the Thunderball Grotto (named and made famous by the James Bond movie) was exactly what we needed to revitalize and replenish all required resources, save for food. The mailboat coming from Nassua twice-ish a week has a different arrival day and time depending on which shopkeep or fellow cruiser we speak to, so we’re making do with what we have, cooking and eating until our freezers and veggie bins are empty, and hope that a boat arrives before it’s rice and beans every night. (Not that I’d have a problem with that, really!)
On the flip side, we did our laundry (in a laundromat/bar combo- brilliant idea), filled our water tanks, topped up the dinghy fuel, and found the Staniel Cay Yacht Club to be a great place for fish sandwiches and dark n’ stormys.
We dinghied around to nearby Big Major Cay’s main anchorage and saw the odd Bahamian phenomenon that is swimming pigs. Tour boats from Nassau has this as one of their ‘must see’ stops, and visitors from around the world hop into the water to see the true amusement of farm animals on a beach. None of us could quite reconcile what was so interesting about it, and yet, I took pictures to capture the experience all the same! We were warned that they could be aggressive and that their hooves have punctured dinghy pontoons, but all in all we found them to be mainly just curious, and hungry for the carrots the tour groups brought with them. They acknowledged our open palms as ‘I don’t have any food for you’, and turned away in annoyed disappointment, but that was it. We did have one swimming for us as we climbed into the dinghy, and I must say we hauled our anchored and reversed off the beach with greater swiftness than usual, but ultimately I think that I can sum up our swimming pigs experience with: weird, a little bit sad, and pretty unnecessary in the scheme of things.
We also snorkeled the Thunderball Grotto while at Staniel, and once again, hidden cave snorkeling proved incredible. This one has many chambers to explore, and a number of diving points to regain access to the outside, making for shafts of light streaking in from various angles, and good water flow for the schools of fish lurking within and around. Andy risked a wet phone to haul the drybag in for photo opportunity, and we’re so glad he did- it commemorated a great afternoon for all of us.
We’re now anchored in Black Point Harbour on Great Guana Cay, finishing up schooling before meeting a large clan of boat kids on the ocean beach this afternoon. There are at least four other ‘kid boats’ in the harbor here, and we tend to glom onto one another pretty quickly in order to keep our littles socialized.
On a schooling note, I’m surprised to announce that V has been the stubborn student this time around- reading and writing now with fluency, her demands from me are greater, and her attitude seems to fluctuate with the tide. As the chief dramatist of the family, my plight is the manage her whines and grumpy moods and coerce her into work, all while clenching my toes under the table and trying to stifle wails of frustration. Holy smokes, I can say it until I’m blue in the face- teachers are saints, and their levels of patience should be bottled and sold. In the end, she always pulls it together and produces great work, but man, the process… maddening.
My not-so-secretive plan has been to try and talk every cruising/teaching parent we meet to take on my kids during their session, but alas, to no avail. (Of course I’m ultimately kidding, but that seems like such a lovely option, doesn’t it?) It is comforting to know that the mental torture I put myself through to get through the schooling some days is a shared experience; not that I appreciate others’ suffering, but the perspective it gives my tired head is somehow soothing. And, perspective being what it is, it’s a short amount of time in each day and a small price to pay for the opportunity to be here, so remembering that is key, and a good mantra to recite. Who’s whining now? (Me.)
I missed the pic with the “blanket”!