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After a good nights sleep we pulled up the anchor at 10 and moved around the
corner to Staniel Cay, just a short jaunt, just long enough to charge the frig.
We anchored in front of the yacht club alongside 2 other sailboats and dingied
in with our load of garbage. There are many more buildings in town and more
scattered all over the island. The yacht club building is recognizable but fixed
up real nice now, it was somewhat of a dump before. Next to it are several small
brightly colored rental cottages on the waterfront. They also have 2 Batelco
phone booths but no phones installed yet. We walked N and then inland towards
the Batelco tower. They did not have a phone there but said one was at the Happy
People Marina so we continued on the inland road N until we came to the creek
and followed it past the church to the marina. Everything seemed closed but we
eventually found the phone and called Jim at work. He actually was at his desk
and answered. The moving van will arrive on the 28th or 29th
and he flies out on Aug 1. We looked around for a while and then found that the
restaurant was open and went in for some hamburgers and beer. After lunch we
walked back to the yacht club and took the dingy to the grocery store which is
up the creek. We got some more film and some fresh vegetables and eggs. Back at
the boat we grabbed our snorkel gear as it was almost hi tide and headed to
Thunderball cave. We got there about at the time of hi tide but the current was
already starting to flow out. Another dingy had just left and we tied up the
mooring there. As Jill jumped into the water a swarm of fish attacked her,
getting right in her face mask. We could not see a direct path into the cave but
climbed over some low rocks to a fissure where the whole side of the island had
been undercut and split away. The fissure was 1-2’ wide, the water went down
about 10’, the rock overhead was 20-30’ hi and we found it was open to the
outside on either end. The cave entrance was almost completely submerged, only a
few inches remained above water but using our snorkels we worked our way thru
the entrance and then it opened up into a huge cavern with light coming in thru
several holes in the ceiling.
There were lots of small and medium sized fish
swimming around and they would come right in your face. A few bit at my back and
legs the first time I tried to get in the cave. A current was running in thru
the entrance and after looking around inside for a while it seemed to be getting
a lot stronger so we swam out while we still could. It was not really too strong
when we tried to swim out. A boat with a dozen snorkelers arrived and took a
mooring next to our dingy. Then we explored the fissure first going N with the
current and then S. At that end the current was really strong and we forced
ourselves out of the fissure and around the side of the rock where the current
was less. The dingy was only 20’ away up current of course. The swim was not bad
but it was harder than we expected to get in the dingy with the current pushing
at us. As we returned to the boat an inter-island freight boat came in from the
Sound and docked at Happy People, unloaded cargo and was off again in a half
hour. We had happy hour and played RummyCub. The sun disappeared behind a layer
of high white clouds and this cooled things off nicely in the evening. The wind
dropped for a while around 6 but came back an hour later, still 10-15 Kt from
the E to SE.