Outside and Inside to Big Major's Spoot and Staniel Key

Hauling in the two anchors of the Bahamian moor at Little Farmers Cay took more time than I had expected. The windlass’ manual said I could turn the top of the drum with a winch handle to disengage the "gypsy" (lower part which has teeth that engage the chain) from the upper part, which is smooth, and can be used as a winch to pull up the rope line holding the second, port anchor. But this disengagement process did not work for us. So after pulling in all of the 80 feet of line I could, by hand,  (not much) and cleating it down, let out another 20 feet of chain for the starboard anchor, wrapped the port anchor line around the drum and pressed the “up” button, pulling in twenty feet of both line and chain at once. Then, cleating down the line again, and letting the chain out the twenty feet again, I repeated, using the windlass to pull on both. After several more 20 feet lengths, the port anchor broke free from its hold on the bottom and I could pull it up by hand and secure the anchor and the line and then haul up the starboard, all chain, anchor the normal way.

We exited from Farmers to the ocean through the cut by which we had entered and set sail.  But we left at the slack at high tide, and in looking at the chart, there was a warning against entering the Big Rock Cut at Staniel Cay, our destination, while the tide is ebbing out to the east while the wind is blowing in from the east. And that is where the wind was and the three hour sail would put us at the cut at just about the maximum flow of the ebb. What to do? The chart told us of another cut, Dotham Cut, about an hour nearer to us (which we could thus enter an hour before maximum ebb) and which was also wider. It was just north of Wild Horses Rocks, at the north end of Great Iguana Cay.

We entered here, with motor and reefed sails pushing us against the tide. It was slow going for about 200 yards (it seemed like a longer stretch), like sailing through a washing machine with waves breaking behind us and very confused seas. The stern of our boat is open at the swim platform, a little more than a foot above sea level and water entered the cockpit from astern, wetting our feet and then drained right back out again. Once through the cut things calmed down and we sailed a big ten mile “C” shaped course around some shallow sandbars and Harvey Cay. Thus the day’s passage was “outside and inside”.  Our trip on the Caicos Bank had prepared us well for such inside bank sailing. We anchored on the west side of Big Major’s Spot, an island just west of Staniel Cay. Many boats were anchored there, close to each other and to the beach, in six to eight feet of water. We stayed quite a ways out amongst megayachts in 16 feet of water, with 100 feet of chain out, and lots of room between boats. This sign says “Welcome to Staniel Cay” and Big Major’s Spot is the green bar to the right, in the back, and we are behind it, near the point, sheltered from prevailing east winds.

 Our first adventure here was to Thunderball Grotto, named after the James Bond Movie. It looks like any other small island, but at low tide one can swim under its opening, blocked by the dink where we moored our dink in this photo taken at high tide,

and snorkeled into the hollow. There is perhaps 15 feet of water inside, and many tropical fish, and the ceiling is high, perhaps 20 feet, with three holes in the rock, each perhaps 5 feet across, through which shafts of sunlight shone, illuminating the water. I took in a disposable underwater camera that Judy had given us in Providenciales but after taking some photos I put it in my pocket and it seems to have fallen out and alas is lost.

Swimming back out, to our dink, we spotted “Corsaire”, which we had last seen exiting George Town, and hailed them and were invited aboard for a drink. Mac and Dana are extremely good hosts.

 She was a top model in her native Czechoslovakia (her website; pitchondesign@hotmail.com) and he was born in the US of one Czech parent. Corsaire is a new boat for them and they have not yet changed its name to “Czech Mate.” She is a photographer who loves to cook and is aggressive about inviting guests aboard. He helped design the programming and charts that are used in all of our car GPS systems. They live south of San Francisco but keep their boat on the east coast. They have sailed these waters for many years and gave us lots of good "local knowledge".  We had two dinners aboard Corsaire. The first was fresh fish fried in panko and the second a cerviched conch salad. Through Mac and Dana, we met Herman, sailing a 40 foot cat ketch “White Wings.” Herman was waiting for parts for his steering system and Mac for parts for his water maker. We had them all over for a breakfast but with no mangos, we used sautéed apples with cinnamon and diced canned pineapple in the batter for the fruit component. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it!
Taking advantage of a very calm day I donned a weighted belt to counteract my natural buoyancy, mask and fins and dove under the boat to inspect for damage when we hit that rock. Good news: the scrape in the lead of the keel is about 5" by 1" by 1/16" --cosmetic.

One morning we dinked over to the beach at Big Major’s Spot to visit its most famous inhabitants.

They swim out for food and we gave them some bread, trying to make sure that they did not board the dink. While there we met a dink with eight people aboard. Their boat is named "Mawari". Their youngest of six, Miles, one year old, was born during their year aboard in Israel!

We also saw “Ptarmigan”, a catamaran sailed by Andy and Barbara of London, who we had met at the Tea at George Town.

Mac had invited us and we invited the Ptarmigans on a dinghy exploration about six miles north through Pipe Creek, a body of water too shallow for us to sail through, but quite deep enough for dinks, bordered by several cays to the east and Pipe Cay to the west.

We stopped at Compass Cay marina and explored that island, including its “low tide airstrip” – too wet to land an airplane at high tide – and its beautiful east facing beach.

And we stopped again for lunch on the way back at Sampson Bay Marina, and then on a beach deserted except for us, for a swim.



 

Our only disappointments were on Staniel Cay itself. Dana showed us where to buy fish off the boat at Government dock, whose underwater residents eat fish heads.

And we bought about six gallons of gas to replace the gas sold to JR on Little Farmers Cay and the fuel used on our explorations, and to top off. And we finally had gone through a liter of the lubricating oil mixed at two percent with the fuel. But produce in both the pink store and the blue store, was almost non-existent, very high priced, and moldy when we get it home and looked at it. What do the natives eat beside fish?  It’s not a healthy diet. And the Yacht Club’s restaurant has wifi, but not for our computer for long enough to do any good. A few seconds at a time won’t cut it. Finally, we waited for an hour for lunch (it’s true that they had a crowd) and then paid for our drinks, left and dined aboard. The Staniel Cay/Big Major’s Spot area is beloved by many sailors and now, despite these few irritations, we are among them.

Posted from Nassau, Bahamas