Staniel Cay, Exumas, Bahamas

At last today dawns with bright blue clear skies and sunshine and we open all the hatches and drag mattresses, bedding and all lockers out for an airing. I give our cabin a real spring clean and Kevin cleans out the anchor locker whilst dragging out the diesel jerry cans ready for us to run ashore and top up.

We don’t need much and it doesn’t seem worth loosing our good anchoring spot, so we go in on the dingy. I am quite excited at the dock to see 6 nurse sharks lazing in the water under the boats on the dock. A big ray glides past in the clear water. I have obviously not thought to bring the camera for photos of diesel filling which just goes to show you. The fuel dock /  marina attendant is less impressed in fact is pretty grumpy to any small talk at all and leaves us to fill our own jerry cans.

I leave Kevin to go and pay whilst I walk to the store to get some bread. Apparently the girl behind the bar is too busy doing her nails when he arrives to serve him. Luckily a nice Danish guy from the boat beside us who popped over to introduce himself last night is around with his son. They depart tomorrow on their first leg north before they depart for their 21 day Atlantic crossing back the other way to the Azores on route to Denmark.

Staniel Cay Beach 

I decide to try the Pink store as it looks the biggest from outside. The screen door looks makes it look dark inside and I hesitate before an elderly female voice tells me to come in. I discover it is actually dark inside, obviously in an attempt to keep it cool, the white haired black lady owner though also has quite a creaky voice and it is quite eerie, it feels like a scene from a cheesy horror film!

I ask if she has any bread and am directed to a deep freeze and select one light and one dark wholemeal loaf. When I get to the counter the owner asks if I am sure about the darker loaf, it tastes different she says. I say yes thanks, we prefer the darker. I ask how much they are, she starts to pick off the price tag which I can see says $3.40, she says $6 each and asks if I am off a boat. How big, I say 36ft, she says wow that’s a big boat for you and your husband, without mentioning it is a catamaran, we are the smallest boat we have seen in weeks, but perhaps this makes her feel better about the 100% increase in price. I say I will put one loaf back and return the lighter loaf to the freezer. When I get back to the counter she says she is not sure she can let me have the darker loaf (the last one) as it tastes a bit funny. Completely flabbergasted by now, I say fine and put this loaf back and return to her competitor up the road.

Staniel Cay Yacht Club

In the blue shop, the old guy behind the counter is really nice and they have the cereal, fresh bread and milk which I need. The 750g Special K (the only non-sugared cereal) is $7.75 mind, but our only alternative on the boat is porridge and we are conserving gas. He also persuades me to take some locally made banana bread for quite a reasonable $2. I am offered a lift back in a golf cart by a nice young local lady and I compliment her on her town which she appears very pleased by.

We head back to the boat and refill diesel and try to restore some order. We have another pleasant afternoon. I try a snorkel on the reef at the back but am a bit nervous about the local guys in skiffs which go past our boat at full speed regularly even passing between us and the reef. We have a game of dominoes in the cockpit in the early evening as I try to avenge the thrashing in our last game of gin rummy a couple of days before. We are quite thrilled to see an Osprey land on the rocks behind the boat with a large fish which he takes his time eating for the next 20minutes as we eat our dinner watching him.

Osprey lands behind the boat to feed

  Osprey close up – taken through the binoculars

Osprey close up – taken through the binoculars

Just before dusk, a local guy comes in a skiff and tells use a freighter is coming in this evening and we ought to move to the blue water over the reef from where we are because he might not see us. Kevin points out quite reasonably that there are rocks behind us and to hit us that it would have to go over them. He just repeats that it might not see us. We are really confused by this odd message, there is very clearly no dock capable of taking a freighter north of where we are, there is very definitely not the draught to take a freighter, we are certainly protected by the rocks behind with a visible flashing white light upon it.  High water comes and goes with no signs of any big ships coming in, we wonder again why anyone would try to navigate in the dark round here. We put our bimini light as well as our anchor light on when we go to bed. No vessels at all come in that night. We are still puzzled what on earth he was trying to achieve in getting us to move. The charts very clearly indicate this is an anchorage, we are not in the channel, we decide to ignore it as we are only staying one more night.