AquaFennatic Great Loop Blog: In the Bahamas! – Waiting for the winds to end in Staniel Cay

Mar 24^th – It was a warm and extremely windy day with a mix of sun and clouds with scattered showers. Last night the winds picked up to over 30 mph and we were hit by heavy rain with thunderstorms in the area. The good news is that the rain washed the majority of the salt off the boat … yea! The bad news is that I got up multiple times through the night to ensure we were holding since the Staniel Cay anchorage is well populated and we would slide into the boats behind us if our anchor wasn’t holding. During the day we had gusts over 40 mph which really tested our anchor, however we’ve found that the anchor holds really well in the Exumas since the bottom is mostly sand. Since it was a crappy day I decided to do some boat chores such as crawling through the bilge checking for loose bolts, checking the engine fluids, putting fresh water in the bilge to flush out any salt water, etc. I also washed down parts of the boat with the fresh water that the dingy captured from all the rain that we had last night. After that I relaxed for the rest of the day. It sounds like these winds are going to continue for the next few days.

Mar 25^th – It was a warm and extremely windy day with a mix of sun and clouds. I decided to continue with the boat chores today since the winds were still howling. I filled the batteries with distilled water, I topped up the trim tab pump with transmission fluid and I used the hookah dive unit to clean the bottom of the boat. Afterwards all of the boaters met at Pirate Beach for cocktails. It was much nicer on the beach since the sun was out and the beach is protected from the winds. The winds are supposed to drop a bit tomorrow and continue to drop through the week. One of the cool things about this anchorage is that everyone blows their conch horn at sunset … thus I’m not the only conch horn blower in this bay ;)

Mar 26^th – It was a warm windy and mostly sunny day today. We went for a dingy ride this morning to an abandoned marina and walked to the dump to dispose of our garbage. Afterwards we headed over to the Thunderball Grotto to snorkel inside the cave. A visitor that left the cave offered me some fish food to take in with me since they were leaving. I said thanks and fed the fish while I was in the cave and I was immediately surrounded by hundreds of fish … they were bumping into me from all angles and I had to swim away however they followed me since they knew I had food. It was a little unnerving to say the least. I then tried to throw the food farther away from me, however they still knew I had the food. They finally left me alone once they knew the food was gone! We then went to the Yacht Club to fill the dingy with gas and headed back to the boat. Once 5pm arrived we headed over to Pirate Beach for cocktails and enjoyed the people and sunshine. The winds dropped a bit today and it looks like tomorrow will be a good day to move to our next anchorage.