Week 41
The EXUMAS, continuation
We continued south in the Exumas as there is an island named Over Yonder Cay. We thought it would be neat to see the island but unfortunately it’s a private island and we cannot land. We were able to approach closely on the ocean side, but the waves were rough and we were limited to photo shoot. But at least we saw Over Yonder from 200 ft. We continued south to Staniel Cay to get fuel. We did not explore the town as we wanted to head to the Pig’s Beach before they close. We found an anchorage close to the Pig’s beach. We took our dinghy to the beach. A group of large pigs welcomed us. They were huge, hairy, and swam right up to the dinghy. I was scared. The note says put your hands up and they will leave you along, so we did and they swam away from us. We walk towards a shed and there are about 30 pigs and piglets in that place. They were just hanging out, hiding in the shade to be away from the sun. We hang with them for half hour, talked to some tourists. There are some kids cuddling the small piglets. I’ve never been that close to pigs.
We went back to the boat and a looper couple stopped by and invited us to join them to the Thunderball Grotto. This grotto was used twice in 2 James Bond movies. The view in the grotto is amazing.
The next morning we started heading north and stopped at Shroud Cay. The island has a long and winding river that goes to the ocean. The current is quite strong and you feel like you’re in washing machine for few minutes. It ends on a huge sand bar so you don’t really end up in the ocean. I did it 5 times and felt like riding a roller coaster at six flags. There are many more interesting places to visit in Exuma but based on weather schedule, we need to start heading north to meet our timelines.
We travel north passing thru Nassau for fuel and anchored west of Nassau, in Clifton Bay, for the night. Then back to the Berry Islands and checked in at Great Harbour Cay Marina. There are about 15 boats there, only two looper boats and mostly catamaran boats. We had a docktails at 5:30 and meet boaters and heard various boating lifestyles.
Week 42
The ABACOS
The route we took from Berry Islands to Abacos
The route we took to Abacos is the northern route to stay on the calmer water.
Here are some photos from this week’s adventures