Big Majors Cay, March 14 - 16, 2022

     Once the weather shifted, we decided to move away from our hidey-hole in Pipe Creek and into the relatively crowded anchorage on the west side of Big Majors.  The path to make it out of Pipe Creek would be another shallow path, winding our way past Overyyonder Cay, Sampson Cay and circling around the back side of Rat Cay (we started out on the east side of Rat Cay and would end up skirting the west side on our way out).  However, now that we had a correctly reporting depth gauge and some experience with this "water reading" stuff, we felt semi-confident.  This, of course, normally precedes some terrible screw up.  We still wanted to do the trip near high tide to give ourselves the best chance of success.  We ended up with some good fortune, because as we rounded Overyonder (an excellent island name), there was another boat in front of us clearly on the same route.  This allowed me to slow down and just follow him.  He looked like a monohull that probably needed more water than we did, so we figured if he didn't run aground, neither would we. He chose the same line I was planning to take.  There is extremely wide-spread agreement that the Explorer Charts are the way to go in the Bahamas and you often see boats hewing very carefully to the imaginary lines laid on the Explorer Charts.

Sunset at anchor from Big Major Cay.  As you can see, its a pretty popular place.

     Once we rounded back into the peaceful waters of the Exuma Bank, where the water is shallow and pretty flat in all but the worst conditions, We had a nice easy trip over to Big Majors, where the anchorage was a busy place, but we had no difficulty finding a suitable spot where we could snuggle in close to land and drop anchor.  It was going to be blowing from the east in the usual way, so we had good protection with our anchor probably not 100 feet from land to our east.  The area we anchored in is sometimes known as the Bay of Pigs, because some enterprising soul at one point dropped off a handful of pigs on the beach of the otherwise empty island and managed to create the world's weirdest tourist attraction.  People convince themselves that hanging out with some pigs would be an amazing way to spend an hour or two and they flock there all day long.  If you just swim with the pigs, I guess that's a thing.  But most people choose to feed the pigs.  If you only know one thing about pigs, it probably should be that they are, well, pigs.  They really enjoy eating -- a lot.  When someone comes up with food, they prefer to eat all the food that the people bring and not to share it with their neighbors.  They started out clamoring noisily for the food, but soon learned that bumping and snapping at you generally got the food faster.  Eventually, they learned that if they gave you a nice little bite on your ass, you would almost always drop all the food you were carrying and take off.  This eventually became on of their preferred techniques and when you anchor off pig beach, you can hear the shouts of people with food who turn out not to enjoy a pig bite.  You can feed them from your dinghy with tongs or something because they haven't yet figured out how to jump in your boat and take it, but I honestly don't really see the attraction of the world's weirdest petting zoo.  I'm told if you don't bring food, they don't usually bite you.  I'll probably try to test out that theory on my nephews.

Pigs swimming out to mug unsuspecting boaters.

     An activity much better suited to us was dinner at the resort on Fowl Cay, situated just feet away from Big Majors.  It is a pretty swanky all-inclusive resort that realized that when they didn't sell all of their rooms, they could hook up with the local yachties and sell a nice multi-course dinner to those of us tired of whatever dried and frozen goodies we have been toting around the world to eat.  Getting a table is a bit of a process -- you have to hail them on the radio in the morning to make contact and then get a message with the menu via WhatsApp from which you make your selections and return them before noon or you cannot participate.  We are no strangers to running complex gauntlets to get into a restaurant, so we happily jumped through whatever hoops they set in front of us.  You are supposed to hail them on the radio as you approach the dock and they will escort you to the restaurant and help tie off your boat, but that part didn't happen so much.  We ended up arriving at the same time as another couple and neither of us made good contact with them via radio.  After we both tied up to the dock, someone did wander down to greet us and things took a turn for the better from that point forward.  In fact, it was the best dining experience we've had in the Bahamas thus far.  We got there in plenty of time for cocktail hour and had a very enjoyable meal and interesting conversation with some of the resort guests.  It turned out that it was a fixed price for drinks and dinner, so I'm thinking I should have drank like a sailor.  My bad.  Next time!

Sunset atop the Hill House restaurant at Fowl Cay resort.  An absolute highlight.

     The next day, we attempted to dinghy across to Staniel Cay to check out the "big island" and see what kind of shops were available.  When we turned the corner of Big Majors heading towards Staniel, the seas had been whipped into a frenzy and the first time I launched Lisa a few feet in the air over a wave, I realized that this dinghy trip was a bad idea.  I was helped in this realization with the loving guidance of my wife.  We went back to Dragonfly to hose off the salt water and review the weather and maps.  It looked to me like I should have hugged Big Majors a bit more closely before shooting across the pass.  We also had some bad luck with wake from a passing speedboat, so I proposed a solo dinghy ride to scout it out.  This one went a lot more smoothly and I probably only took on a gallon or two of sea water at most.  I couldn't actually figure out the situation for dinghy dockage at Staniel Cay Yacht Club (I was on the wrong side of the dock) so I just went up the stream to Isles General store, where they are supposed to have boat supplies.

The view from Hill House looking back over the Bay of Pigs. 
The far right is the site of our first failed dinghy mission.

     In classic Bahamas fashion, there were several people sitting around the front of the store and as I walked up, they let me know that the store wasn't open.  The sign on the door said "Open" and the hours proclaimed that it was open from 1-5 after closing for an hour for lunch.  It was now 2pm.  When I pointed this facts out, I just received a shrug in response.  I sat down on a shady bench with a couple of older locals to sort this out.  They advised me that she never came back from lunch and that it was possible she was at church where the sometimes had an afternoon service.  Said service was supposed to be over by 1:30, but you never know.  They also told me someone had already gone to the owner's house and she was not at home.  We mulled over these facts for a while and decided that perhaps we would continue on our way and try back later.  I walked around the town doing reconnaissance.  There were two competing grocery stores known locally as the Blue Store and the Pink Store.  Both of them had very limited options available, none of which were bread of any kind.  Even though the Blue Store has more items, I liked the vibe of the pink store better.  I think you are supposed to pick sides.  Apparently the supply boat was due later that day and then they both hoped to have more bread.  I bought a few random items to prove to Lisa that I actually did make it to the island.  I also scouted out the laundry (expensive) and the Yacht Club (significantly less fancy than the name suggests).  I saw where I went wrong searching for a dinghy dock -- it is really more of dinghy pen surrounded by a high-ish wall that makes a little tiny harbor just big enough for the 30 dinghies who are eating or drinking at the yacht club to nestle in.

A typical evening on board for us, watching Critical Role and having a drink
as we try to convince ourselves that 7:30 isn't really that early to think about going to bed.

    When I went back to Isles, it was mysteriously open again, although the owner was on her cell phone saying that she was planning close early today so she could take care of something or other.  I felt lucky to have fit into her schedule at all.  To my dismay, they didn't have any jerry cans for water, only diesel and gasoline.  There was a ton of empty space on the shelf, so I was pretty sure they didn't have any in the back, but something inspired me to ask anyhow -- probably making conversation as much as anything else.  She looked thoughtful for a minute and declared that she believed that she did.  Many long minutes later, she returned from the back room that seemed larger than the actual store and triumphantly waved two water jugs at me.  She declared that they were her last two cans and that I was very lucky.  I agreed, paid the somewhat exorbitant price happily and headed back for another wet dinghy ride back to Dragonfly.  As I relayed all that I had learned to Lisa and we decided that it might be best if we relocated to Staniel Cay proper the next day so that we could both visit with only a very short and flat dinghy ride to contend with.  The journey on Dragonfly would certainly take more time pulling up the anchor and getting settled in Staniel than actual travel, which would probably take not more than 20 minutes or so.,

The big yacht to our right just came in on the last day and the guests were very drunk and very loud,
so neither of us felt bad about moving to the next island over.