They might not fly here- but they can sure swim....
Arion's West Indian Adventure
Hermione & Douglas Pattison
Sat 28 May 2016 23:34
Here at Staniel Cay we are anchored off a beach inhabited by pigs. Every day, people come to visit the pigs, bringing scraps of food with them. They are so used to this treatment, whenever a dinghy lands, the pigs all run to the boat and stand politely with their mouths open!! They also swim around and Alice was lucky enough to join one for a quick dip yesterday. A first for most 2 year olds probably!!
This is also the location where they filmed ‘Thunderball’. Do you remember the really badly filmed scene of a boat chase through the Cays with the ‘Disco Volante’ and a Fairy Huntsman?… Well, now we can say ‘Been there’!! Yesterday we snorkelled in the 'Thunderball Grotto' which was also used for the film. (We have yet to watch the film again, but we think it is the bit where the rocket is launched from…!!) It is an underwater cave full of the most amazing fish. You can get into the cave from several directions so when you are inside, looking underwater, there are bright blue shafts of light from the other underwater openings. Arthur loves it so much he has been in 3 times!!
Yesterday was the start of the Arion ‘international school’ as we did little session of reading/writing with Arthur and his Dutch friend Quirijn (pronounced Key-Rein). The boys seemed to enjoy having a class mate, and afterwards it was lego and faceprinting. In the evening we joined up with the two other Dutch boats and had a gathering on Pirate beach. Supper was a delicious mix of Dutch Pancakes and marshmallows which we toasted on the camp fire. In turn, the Midges ate us for supper so we are all rather red and spotty today!!
This morning we motored over to a snorkelling spot which is an old plane which crashed. It is only 2m down, so very shallow. There was an enormous nurse shark lurking under the wing, plus a puffer fish, amongst many other species. Alice unusually did not want to go in, but Douglas, Arthur and I did. I think we were all very brave to swim so near to a shark (Nurse Sharks are pretty harmless, but still- its a SHARK!!) so I feel now I am getting over my fear of sharkies!!!!! Arthur loved seeing the plane and is still trying to work out how and why it crashed…..
On the good advice from Hamish (he has been in touch daily on the VHF with weather info plus tips on where to go) we are now anchored off a place called Compass Cay. As I write this, we have just had lunch and Arthur has gone to play with Quirijn and later on we plan to explore the area in the dinghies and do some snorkelling. It is very pretty here but lots of shallow water to had to come in on the high tide.
There has been talk over the last couple of days of a tropical storm developing and heading this way. We were relieved to hear that it has gone North and not developed properly. Phew all around!!