Big Majors

We had a great time anchored at Big Majors.  We arrived on Wednesday after a pleasant, if windy, day run from Highbourne.  Sean & Louise were anchored there, along with 60+ other boats. I couldn’t believe how many boats were anchored in the bay!  Back in ’09 I think the most we saw was half a dozen. We thought there’d be a lot of people because of the weather – this is a really nice protected bay for N-S winds.  We dropped the hook kind of in the middle of the bay and were fine. This is the up side of weighing over 72 tons, it takes a lot to make us uncomfortable in an anchorage (the downside being our 6’8” draft).

We were pooped and a bit loopy when we arrived and the thought of dropping and driving Petal across the channel seemed a bit overwhelming. So Sean & Louise dropped Scalar and the 4 of headed out to Staniel Cay for dinner. It was a very fun adventure!  The wind was whipping and it was a bumpy and wet ride. We hid behind blankets and towels and crossed the channel. As we approached the dinghy dock we realized that the bow line had been flung off Scalar when I was adjusting my blanket – we realized it because it wrapped around the prop. Doh!  We got tied up though, no harm done, and arrived laughing, hungry, wet, and salty. Luckily, I wore a dress with pants underneath so I was able to lose my wet pants (removed in a conveniently placed phone booth, such are my super powers) for dinner J 

Our first full day at Big Major we picked up Sean & Louise and went to visit the swimming pigs of course!  The pigs live on the cay and are fed by cruisers year round. There were 3 sows and two litters of young ones, some were tiny!  They know what it means when a dinghy arrives and literally come running/swimming. It can be a bit intimidating when the big girls are heading straight for you (they are not tame) and we watched some tourists learn that it’s best to drop the food and run, not run with the food…

Pigs on Big Majors

Swimming pig

Then we went over to Staniel Cay Marina to walk around and check it out.  We visited the 3 groceries stores. Just like in ’09, the Blue Store and Isles General were open, but the Pink was closed. (I’ve never been to the Pink Store when was actually open.) We walked by the airport where there were almost a dozen people waiting for flights. This is a good location for the megayachts to anchor/dock and pick up/drop off guests.  Then we had dinner at Staniel again and enjoyed watching all the people at the bar.

Me and Martin at the Isle Grocery

Staniel Cay Marina from the south

Nurse sharks at Staniel Cay, waiting for handouts

This nurse shark was quite enamored of this engine for some reason!

The next day Sean & Louise headed south to Galliot Cut to stage for their trip south to Georgetown.  We decided to stay at Big Majors for a couple more days, trying to decide when and from where we’d leave to go south.  Friday evening we were pleasantly surprised when Bruno & Beatrice from Trixie came by on their tender to say hello. We had seen them last fall back in the Chesapeake and said hello in passing. They’re a wonderful couple and we had a great time getting to know them. We went over to say hi and tour their boat Saturday morning (a gorgeous nordhavn 76!) and once again, had a lovely time talking and getting some puppy love from Bandit, their very adorable boat dog.

Originally we’d planned on heading south on Saturday but we changed our minds and decided to stay for a couple more days. My head was spinning, looking at tides and weather and cuts to exit through. The weather looked like it would finally chill out early in the week (after several days of up to 25k winds) so we threw in the towel and we decided to just wait until the winds were done.  So later that day we went out snorkeling.  It took a bit of courage for me to get in the water. I’m practically phobic about sharks…and yes I love to scuba dive and snorkel - it’s an issue.  We’ve been watching huge nurse sharks cruise under our boat and around the bay. I know that you can pound a nurse shark with a mallet and it would rather flee than attack, but I still can’t bring myself to get in the water with them. (I blame “Jaws”, I think it scarred me as a young girl, forever.) But I did get in and we explored the bay. 

Martin preparing to jump in

Contemplating…

And it’s cold!

We spent the rest of the weekend reading, cooking, relaxing, and enjoying the sunsets from our flybridge.  We loved our time here and can’t wait to come back later in April. We have so much to do yet – snorkeling, (including going to Thunderball Grotto), exploring Staniel a bit more, and visiting the restaurant on Fowl Cay.

By Monday the winds had calmed down and we were ready to move again.  It was time to head south to Black Point and get ready to head to Georgetown. We decided that we’d go out through Dotham Cut.  Sean & Louise are in Georgetown now so Louise can fly out on Tuesday.  We plan to arrive on Wednesday, when we can leave on an early slack. We'll anchor as near Sean as we can so we can keep him company while Louise visits California. 

I’m really excited about the next several weeks. We’ve never been south of Staniel Cay because we had to turn back from here in ’09 when we had engine trouble. For those who don’t know, from January-June, 2009, we lived aboard our 43’ express cruiser, I Got Lucky. We spent almost 3 months cruising the Bahamas, from Nassau to Staniel Cay. It was an incredible adventure and we met amazing people, some of whom are now close friends. It was by far the highlight of our 6 months living aboard Lucky and sparked the idea of living aboard in the future.

It’ll be a very different experience now, I’m sure. The Exumas have changed quite a bit and are more built up. It will probably be much more “crowded” since there were few boats here in ’09 because of the economic downturn. The megayachts in the anchorages mean lots of jet skis and tenders flying around the anchorages so it’s a bit more noisy.  Lucky only drew 3.5 feet so we were able to creep up close to shore and into nooks. Now, with almost twice the draft (6’8”) we’ll be anchoring in different places. We’ll also be more comfortable since Blossom has amenities that Lucky didn’t like floppers, 800+ gallons of water, a full size refrigerator, a freezer and a washer & dryer. We’re more self-sufficient and don’t need to stay in marinas at all, though it might be nice to pop into one now and then. Lucky was like camping, Blossom is like carrying a resort around with us!

One thing is for sure – it feels magical to be back here in this clear turquoise water…

Boat Business

Power Management.  Anchoring out for so long is giving us an opportunity to work on power management.  Blossom has a lot of big boat systems on a relatively small boat so we’re very “power-hungry”.  At first, we needed to run our gen almost 8 hours a day. While lots of “big boats” run their generators 24/7, we had hoped to only need to run ours for a few hours a day.

Our electronics use an incredible amount of power but we’d been leaving them on while at anchor so we could leave our GPS up and have our anchor circle up on our screen. This is the best way to see if you’re dragging.  (See the chicken pic from our post back at the end of February). Martin played around with them and we can now leave the one screen up which shows our anchor circle, but turn everything else off.  With this modification we’re down to about 5-6 hours of gen time which, while not great, is much better!