Staniel Cay 1-24-07

Wednesday, January 24, 2007 – Staniel Cay

It was dead calm with no wind, so we motored to Staniel Cay, about 20 nautical miles, where we expected to have mail awaiting us. Haven’t had mail since Dec. 13!!! Unfortunately, despite the plans that we made to receive our mail there didn’t happen—No surprise. The Staniel Cay Yacht Club has free internet service so we were able to track down our mail sent from St. Brendan’s Isle ( our mail service), but in spite of prior arrangements for its delivery, it took yet another call to get it on its way. Should be here today, Friday, January 26. In the meantime, we are enjoying delicious conch bits and pieces at the yacht club and great Kalik beer, the local Bahamian beer. Also, heard that the late-night talk show host, Conan O’Brien, was staying at the yacht club as well. (A local pilot shared this information pointing him out in the restaurant.)

Weather was extremely windy yesterday. It was dicey getting in the dinghy and going to the yacht club. Balancing a computer wrapped and re-wrapped in plastic bags and a backpack for mail made for an exciting trip in the bouncy waves. When we got there, we were watched a local fisherman extracting and cleaning conch, expertly. Tried to make some calls using our Skype connection (low cost telephone service through the Internet), but the connection was poor, so we didn’t continue.

We walked around the island for a little admiring the brightly colored houses. There was Burke’s Blue Store and Hugh Smith’s Pink Store both with similar groceries like corned beef, soup, cosmetics, paper goods—a limited supply and somewhat pricey. In the pink store, the friendly Bahamian storekeeper wearing a black velvet cloche hat promised to hold a loaf of homemade bread for us on Friday, since the day’s supply was already gone. We’re looking forward to that.

Around 4:30 we started our dinghy ride back to the boat. It was a little scary—high waves, rolly seas—totally fraught with peril. We toyed with moving our boat to a less bouncy anchorage, but decided to stay put. Squalls went through during the night. Lots and lots of strong wind and rain, but we remained safe and sound. Frequent checks on the anchor proved we weren’t going anywhere—a good feeling. Looks like we’ll be staying put for another two days as there’s a nasty weather pattern in these parts.