From Emerald Rock we cruised to Staniel Cay with delightfully calm weather. One of the highlights of calm weather is the effect it has on the surface of the water and visibility. When the wind chop smooths out, the visibility increases dramatically as evidenced by the photo of our anchor just behind the swim platform. Yes, that’s our anchor on our stern, the photo is in about 18 ft of water, with the anchor clearly visible as well as each link of the chain. It’s astounding to be able to see that clearly in that depth. One advantage of the visibility is being able to spot things that might happen to go overboard. Drop your chapstick? No problem! Spot it on the bottom and just head down and retrieve it! No more lost sunglasses! Joking aside, neither example is stuff of tall stories, both actually happened! Now a chapstick may not be something you’ll want to dive for, but when you’re in the Bahamas, a new one may wait for a visit to a larger settlement that may have them!
With the run of calm weather, we went for an explore in the dinghy, heading to south Staniel Cay and toward the ocean (sound) side, where a cut heads back north to the east side of the island. On the west side of the cut lies the main part of Staniel and one the east, a long spit of land only a few hundred yards wide extends south from the settlement. Located on that spit are numerous large homes, and several under construction. The cut is deep enough for probably a 5 foot draft vessel, but it might take some probing. A number of the properties had large (~60 ft.) sport fish boats. The homes along the spit face the sound (ocean) on a bluff with a spectacular ocean view. We’ve admired them when we’ve cruised past on the sound, so it was interesting to see them from the “back” side. No less commanding, many are simply monstrous!
Since this was not our first visit to Staniel, we decided to head further south while we had a good weather window for cruising the sound side toward Georgetown.