January 16: Staniel Cay
     0900 underway from Hog Cay into our first voyage on the Sound side of the Exumas.  The wind and sea had moderated nicely and we had a good motor-sail downwind along the coast.  We decided since we were finally out of the no-take zone that we should make some use out of the fish poles we had carted around for the last 7 months, and within twenty minutes we had our first strike!  We had to round up and stop the boat to land our first 30 inch barracuda.  What a toothy fish, and not considered edible in these parts so back he went, pretty much none the worse for wear.

Dan ties on the lures.

Barracuda - catch and release

     Only about 12 miles down we pulled into Big Rock Cut, the entrance to the anchorages at Staniel Cay.  We followed our buddy boat Solana in and anchored right in the shadow of Thunderbolt Grotto, the grotto used in the filming of the James Bond movie of the same name.

Thunderbolt Grotto

     Kathy and I swam over to the grotto after we anchored, but it was high tide and you have to swim under the rocks to get into the grotto, so we passed and decided to try again in the morning.  The next day we did enter the grotto, a cave within the island, with several holes thru the top of the island, which light the cave from above.  Very cool to swim into this cave, having to duck under the shoreline at the entrance, and to enter the subdued light of the cave rooms within.  It was like swimming inside an aquarium.  I wore a knife strapped to my leg so I could feel more Bond-ly.

     On Sunday we dinghied ashore at Staniel to see if one of the two groceries was open.  Only in the afternoon, they said, because of Sunday morning church.  We decided to come back at 1300, have lunch at the Yacht Club bar, watch some NFL playoffs, then hike up to the store.  I had a burger, Kathy had the fish tacos.  At the store, the owner had to come out of her house next door to open up for us and we met her daughter, the cutest little girl who was entertaining us with singing "Wheels on the Bus."   She and Kathy played Patty-Cake, then for some reason she wanted Kathy to slap her hand as hard as she could.  We ended with her slapped my hand as hard as she could.  Then we taught her the game where you hold your hands just over another person's, then try to pull them away before the other person slaps the backs of your hands.  After a few tries she got the idea.  Poor girl will probably get expelled from school on Monday.

     When we got back to the Willie, the wind had shifted, making our anchorage quite rough, so we got both anchors up and steamed around to the East side of nearby Big Majors island, where it was quite calm in the lee.  It remained so until the wee hours, when the wind died out and allowed the swell to roll un thru the Cut, giving us a good rolling.  Not a pleasant night.
     Sometime during the football game the previous day, one of our flopper-stoppers (Gordon calls them Capt. Dan's Roll Cans) came loose and was lost.  So Monday morning I dinghied back over to the grotto to look for the lost orange tub.  Since it was lined with lead, it had sunk right where we had been anchored and was an easy retrieval.  While I was there, I tried to get some photos of the inside of the Grotto, in which I failed miserably, taking them with my smart phone inside two waterproof cases!  Can you say blurry?
     Big Major Cay is home to a wild herd of swimming pigs, but while we were there we didn't see any.  The weather wasn't very nice, perhaps they were holed up in a mud hole inside the island somewhere.  We will have to look for them next time we come through.