The Bahamas in total consists of 700 islands and 2,400 cays, 30 of which are inhabited. In 1783 American Loyalists settled in Great Exuma. Looking for a new and safer home, they brought cotton farming to Georgetown.

If you’ve seen Pirates of the Caribbean or James Bond movie Thunderball, you’ve seen a piece of the Exumas but where those films took place is only the tip of the palm tree my friend. The Exumas have so much to offer. We sailed near Georgetown with my parents but with guests and flights out of the picture we were ready to get out of the Georgetown circle.

Our first day we sailed right past Black & White, Childrens, Rat, and Lee Stocking. We spent the afternoon around Adderly, Zobo, & Leaf Cay dropping our anchor SW of Leaf Cay. We had 4 other boats anchor near us… talk about Time Square rush hour, Geez! Around the corner were iguanas but other than that, just your run of the mill paradise.

We sailed from Adderly to Big Major Cay inside the Bahama Banks. With cays and reefs on one side and shallow sand on the other side, there’s not a lot of room for fetch/waves to build up. Sailing through flat, shallow, sandy bottom, turquoise water,  THIS is why we’re here! To experience this kind of sailing. We drank Nates and soaked in the sun. We passed a beautiful island called Musha, for $38,000 a week you can rent the island and enjoy a dinner. When we passed it, we saw someone vacuuming sand from the beach to relocate it. I cringe to think of how many people make use of that….  you could give that money to an aspiring college kid, you could invest in someones struggling company, you could feed families. Nah, I think I’ll go paint my toes and do yoga for an afternoon with some friends on Musha… argh.

Big Major/ Staniel Cay – This is where it gets exciting. Pigs reside on the western beach of Big Major. The pigs are tame for the most part, becoming slightly aggressive if you bring them food. But! If you do bring food they will swim for it. YES Swimming pigs! We brought our dinghy up to the beach and immediately the largest pig came tromping over to greet us and ever so piggishly to see what treats we may have brought. Heads up, if you run, they will follow, I was a bit surprised that a pig of that mass could run on a beach so well.

We ventured on land and found piglets hiding under the palm trees with the mother pig. We watched them trot to a new palm tree when the mother pig left for food. Sigh, very adorable. If you do go to feed the pigs try and feed the smaller guys, they tend to get bullied out of their share of food.

From Big Major we took our dinghy around the corner to explore Staniel Cay. The island was cute with a few convenience stores we were glad to make use of. We enjoyed a large lunch at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club which held a festive and loved nautical vibe. Seated next to us was a brother and sister who were tour guides and originally from the area, turns out the sister studies and lives in Worcester MA.

Staniel Cay is most known for Thunderball grotto. From the water it appears to be an amassed land formation in the middle of the harbor but if you anchor your dinghy at slack tide you can find ledges that you can swim under and find your way into the center of the limestone rock and see it’s really a beautiful hollowed-out cave. The sergeant majors are accustomed to being fed by tourists and will swarm you which is fun. It reminded me of St. Martin in Grand Case, but only, the sergeant majors there were far more aggressive to the point where I would keep moving my arms and fins just to keep them from hitting me. The water is beautifully clear and the fish plentiful. There are multiple ways to get in and out of the grotto some more difficult than others. Mike and I had fun finding them all. Diving under some of the ledges can be disorienting, particularly if you’re diving from a heavily lit place back into the grotto. The water will play tricks on your eyes and what looks like a pocket of air is really more submerged limestone. Thankfully those entrances are the difficult passages, there are far simpler ways in. The main entrance is straight forward, in fact at low tide, I don’t believe you would need to put your head completely underwater. We swam at high tide and behind me you can see the passage out is fairly direct.

We left Big Major to continue up the Exumas – but that’s in the next post…