The Southern Exumas

We arrived Staniel Cay/Big Majors Spot on January 20th. These islands are famous for the swimming pigs and Thunderball Grotto. The anchorage at Big Majors Spot is gorgeous and we finally started seeing lots of cruisers. We ended up spending a week here. The weather was perfect, there's tons of stuff to do, and we met some amazing people.

Wild Rover at Sunset at Big Majors Spot

Everyone talks about the swimming pigs and we were so excited to see them. Unfortunately it was a bit of a disappointment. The pigs are huge and very aggressive. They have gotten used to visitors and expect to be fed. If you have food or even smell like food I'd suggest staying on your boat and viewing them from afar. They will come out to you and you can feed them from the boat. If you go to the beach they will chase after you and we had friends that were bitten. We did enjoy watching a local boat arrive with tons of food for the pigs. The pigs came running out of the woods and swam out to meet the boat. All in all, worth seeing once but not what we expected.

Pig Beach on Big Majors Spot

In contrast, Thunderball Grotto exceeded our expectations. Thunderball Grotto, named for the James Bond movie, has been a set location for many movies. A short dinghy ride from either Big Majors or Staniel Cay, we anchored outside and snorkeled through a small opening into the grotto. The fish inside were amazing as was the grotto itself. There are many underwater entrances to swim through. You can also hike to the top although there are many signs stating no jumping. They are concerned that jumpers will erode the top holes and destroy the grotto. Mikey climbed up to check it out but said it was definitely too high to jump. We also snorkeled around the outside of the island. Lots of coral, fish, stingrays, etc to check out. We loved it so much we actually came back to snorkel it again.

Entrance to Thunderball Grotto

Mikey Checking out the Grotto from Above

Grotto Selfie

Staniel has two stores for provisioning. The Pink Store (Pink Pearl) and the Blue Store (Burke's) which are right next to each other and a short walk from Staniel Cay Yacht Club dinghy beach. Both stores are small and it was an adventure to see what they received each time the mail boat came in. The Pink Store even had fresh baked Bahamian bread, a dense, sweet bread. Stores in the islands are dependent on the mail boats that arrive at least once per week, weather permitting. The mail boats are small container ships carrying everything from lettuce to cars. When you ask what day the boat arrives you will usually receive an answer like "Wednesday, or maybe Thursday, we hope". A few hours after the boat arrives its a mad dash of cruisers to the stores to stock up. Produce goes fast, especially the bananas and avocados.

Trying out some videos in our posts. Hope this works but they sure do

take a long time with our limited internet.

Staniel Cay Yacht Club has a great dinghy beach for cruisers so this was our usual landing site for all things needed on shore. They also have fuel and water. In appreciation for this service we would usually stop in at the bar for a quick cold beer. It was also a great place to watch the NFL playoffs. Here we found two LYC (Lakewood Yacht Club) burgees hanging from the rafters.

Big Majors was the first spot we anchored that had a cruisers beach and happy hour. It was definitely nice to socialize a bit off the boat. The sunsets were gorgeous but we quickly headed back to the boat because the no-see-ums are brutal.

Sunset from Cruiser Beach, Big Major Spot

More Sunset Shots

The kids had a blast with the relatively flat water in the anchorage. We broke out the paddle boards and the they enjoyed skurfing, paddle boarding behind the dinghy. They had quite an audience around the anchorage and we soon saw a few other parents pulling their kids around. Such trendsetters. LOL

Skurfing

We left Big Majors on the 27th for Cave Cay to sit out the next big blow. Since we had to enter at high tide we anchored off Big Galliot Cay for the night. It was a gorgeous evening under the full moon with perfectly still water. Cave Cay is definitely an interesting place. We had an amazing two nights here waiting for the winds to calm down. The island is privately owned by a gentleman from Lubbock. The marina has floating docks and Shark, the manager, is amazing. The island has its own runway and originally there were plans for cottages and a club house. Unfortunately they were never finished. The island is for sale though. Any one with an extra 60 million and want a project? We hiked around and checked out the beautiful beaches. The best part though was the company of the other cruisers. We hung out with 'old' friends and new. We even had a big pot luck dinner the last night.

Once the winds calmed down we finally set out for Georgetown. Georgetown/Stocking Island is about the southern point of the Exumas. Many people spend the whole season here. There is a huge cruiser community with lots of activities for everyone plus lots of services ashore for provisioning, boat repair, etc. Unfortunately, our second day in Georgetown was time to find a safe place to sit out the next norther. See a trend yet? It seems like our entire Exuma time was spent running from northers. Ugh. We hid this one out in Red Shanks (or as Mike calls it Red Shanks Penitentiary) for a week. Not much to say about Red Shanks as there is nothing to do there. No beaches or fun activities. Just a safe harbour from the wind.