Big Majors Spot and Warderick Wells

We did get to spend a second day anchored in high winds near Thunderball Grotto.  We did some more snorkeling and saw even more varieties of fish the second time.  Thunderball has become our favorite snorkeling spot.  After Thunderball near Staniel Cay we  went to Big Majors Spot.  No one seemed to be on the beach - no pigs - no nothing.

We heard a call from Andrea Cay, a megayacht next to us, for anyone who would trade some benadryl for a bottle of wine.  We were all over that but on second thought we declined the wine.  The skipper of Sunrise took some benadryl over to Andrea Cay before they were able to come over to us to pick it up.  Bill, the skipper of Sunrise, said he was concerned when he heard the request.  Since he had some special medical training it was good that he checked out the situation.  (It turned out not to be serious.)  He explained to us that the pigs would come out when we sent ashore.

We set off to the beach and were quickly approached by two extremely enthusiastic swimming pigs.  One of the pigs snorted and repeatedly butted our dinghy with his snout.  These pigs were gourmets.  They rejected the carrots we offered.  They obviously expected something better.  Oh well.  We departed munching on our carrots. They seemed fine to us.

Hey, I  didn't swim out here for some lousy carrots
from a cheap ass sailor!  Give me a break

After our visit with the pigs we had a fast downwind sail to Warderick Wells.  Our autopilot started acting up again.  As we tried to make a U-turn to grab our mooring, the steering seemed balky.  It got stuck and released in time for us to slowly approach the mooring to pick it up in the strong current.  Once again I found the autopilot in the bilge and a box holding the rudder sensor ripped off the bulkhead.  I spent some more time in the engine compartment trying to get a large bolt deeper into the autopilot than I had before.

The next day we headed to Boo Boo Hill to see if Maryanne could summit this time.  She got way ahead of  me and was ready for the final assault when I reached her.  Up, up and away she went - all the way to the top. She found our driftwood sign at the top and spent some time searching for Chad's 2010 Sabbatical sign.  No luck with Sabbatical but she did find Alesto from our friends Lee and Sherry.

Chuck & Maryanne atop Boo Boo Hill

Since we had so much fun snorkeling at Thunderball we decided to try Exuma Land and Sea Park's coral garden again this time.  Last time we saw only one or two fish.  This time as we were climbing into our dinghy next to Symphony's transom we saw two schools of good sized fish.  Some of them hung around as though they were expecting a handout.  We headed out to the dinghy mooring at the coral garden.  We were a little concerned because last time we were unable to climb back into our dinghy.  That time we swam the dinghy to Alesto to climb out of the water on their ladder.  This time there was no catamaran for us to board.  We planned to swim the dinghy to a sand bar to climb back in.  The coral garden surprised us.  There were many more fish than we had seen last time and they were bigger than the fish that we had seen at Thunderball.

When it came time to move the dinghy I decided to try a strategy that Al from Windancer had suggested.  He told me to push myself underwater straight down and then kick my swim fins hard to get as much altitude out of the water as possible.  I tried.  It worked!  I was able to tumble into the dinghy and figured I could tow Maryanne into the sand bar.  I suggested she try the technique.  She was less than enthusiastic about receiving lengthy instructions.  She was getting pretty cold.  She also tried the technique - and with a little help  she, too, was able to scramble into the dinghy.  We now know that we can snorkel from the dinghy and do not need to be able to stand  next to it in order to climb in.

Today Monday, March 26 we are sitting in Rock Sound Harbor with barely a breath of wind at 9:30 p.m.
We arrived here from Warderick Wells on Saturday after a beautiful full day of sailing.  We moved across the harbor yesterday in anticipation of strong winds and squalls from the west.  The squalls arrived this morning and did a great job of washing the salt off of the boat.  Fortunately, the winds were not too bad.  We will probably spend some more time here waiting out strong winds associated with a secondary front due here tomorrow evening.  It's ironic that we are in a sailboat and that most of our delays have been from too much wind!