Forest Gump Moment and Staniel Cay

The Sea Hawk at anchor

"I'm pretty tired, I think I'll go home now".  That is what Forest Gump had to say when he stopped running.  We left Duluth, MN on June 12, 2017 and almost 4000 miles ago, we have been moving south ever since.  Well, we zipped through Highborne and Norman Cay after leaving Rose Island and kept going south.  We got to Staniel Cay and set the anchor, sat down in the cock pit, looked at other and said almost simultaneously, "Let's just stay here for a couple of months and stop going south".  So here we have been for the the last month, exploring the cays around Staniel.

There is a small grocery store at Highborne Cay

The Highborne Cay mascot

Staniel Cay is a fun place with Thunderball Grotto and Pig Beach (Big Major Cay).  There is a small settlement with two stores, Berke's and Pearl, AKA the blue and pink stores.  There is also the yellow house where you can get great bakery items.  Bruce was able to pick up a new bathing suit at Lyndsey's Boutique.  We have our laundry washed at Ruth's which is also a liquor store.  The Bahamian Kalik beer is great!  There is a BTC office and an airport.  What more does one need?

 Outside Staniel Cay Marina

Swim with the nurse sharks at your own risk!

The sign says it all

Cocktails at Staniel Cay Marina

Sundowners on the Paradise

Lazing the afternoon away in front of Staniel Cay Marina

Staniel Cay is our home away from home for now.

More on our explorations, coming soon................

Rose Island, Snorkeling and Beach Campfires

We left Chub Cay at 0440 to head for Rose Island.  I hate not having my time to wake up slowly and gently with a great cup of coffee in the morning.  But when we make relatively long passages we like to make sure we will be there before sunset, this allows for any problems along the way.  So I suck it up and put on my big girl pants even though I want to stamp my feet and say, ‘No Go’.  It was certainly worth it as we sailed slowly into the lee side of Rose Island just a few miles northeast of Nassau.  There were several shallow reefs with a narrow passage into the anchorage which took visual piloting reporting (AKA VPR) but we entered without incident and anchored in about 7 feet of water.  

Nassau in the distance from our anchorage.  That is Atlantis on the far right.

 View of the beach from our cockpit

The reefs surrounding our anchorage offered great opportunities for snorkeling of which we took advantage.  The beauty of the reefs was breathtaking and I realized that the pictures and videos I had seen had in no way enhanced or exaggerated the beauty, colors and variety of fish that I was seeing.  There were purplish, bluish sea fans, brain coral, colorful tubelike sponges and many I could not name.  I saw Foureye Butterflyfish (with the big eye on their body), blue tangs (Dory fish), Banded Butterflyfish, and I believe I saw some snapper.  

Although these pictures are taken from Google Images it was exactly what I saw.

Foureyed Butterfyl Fish

Blue tang

Sea Fan

Those were just the fish I could name.  The marine life I saw was simply overwhelmingly awesome. 

We even had sundowners over a campfire on the beach one night.

As Louis Armstrong once said "It's a Wonderful World"