Thunderball Grotto, Normans Cay and Nassau

Spectra
Paul & Norma Russell
Mon 16 Mar 2015 12:23

Thunderball Grotto, Normans Cay and Nassau

25:04.53N 77:18.72W

16th March 2015

7258 Miles from Ramsgate by log.

 

            The last day in Staniel Cay included a trip by dinghy over to Thunderball Grotto for a mini snorkelling safari. The grotto is a local tourist attraction famous for its clear waters and for the multitudes of colourful fish, the grotto and hence its name was used for one of the scenes in the James Bond film Thunderball. You have to anchor your dinghy just outside and swim over to the entrance which is just about invisible being no more than a small fissure in the rock face, at low water the entrance is exposed but at high tide you have to dive down and swim through the small entrance tunnel in order to get in. With this in mind we had planned our arrival for half tide which should have given us an easy route in and still left plenty of water inside for the fish. Unfortunately our plan went awry as the tide was running hard causing such a huge quantity of water to rush out of the grotto that you just couldn’t swim fast enough to get in through the entrance, this left us hanging onto the rocks just outside wondering what to do. All was not lost though, simply by dipping your head under the water while hanging onto the rocks an absolutely amazing display of brightly coloured fish came into view. The water was clearer, the fish bigger, brighter, and more plentiful than any aquarium I have ever seen. What was going on just beneath the surface was honestly just absolutely amazing. After that great experience it was a quick dinghy ride over to Staniel Cay for an internet fix before heading back to Spectra and spending  the rest of the day on maintenance.

 

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Staniel Cay

 

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Staniel Cays free WIFI hotspot

 

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Me in the office, it must be dress down Friday

 

It never stops really, but if you don’t keep on top of it the gremlins will grab the opportunity to catch you out just when you least expect it and so this week I checked the batteries, re ran the VHF cable again, checked the generator starter motor (all still good J), serviced the forward toilet (lovely job that) and planned the next two legs up to Normans Cay and Nassau. After I had finished my chores we had Mike and Kate over for sundowners and to wish them fare thee well for the next week until we meet up again in Exuma park. We have set up a daily schedule on our SSB long range radios to keep tabs on progress so if you have access to an SSB (Single Side Band High Frequency Radio) why not listen in; it is, ‘Temple Net’ at 1200 UTC, frequency 2214.0, or if that fails 4003.0 at 1215 UTC,  It would be great, and frankly pretty amazing, if someone from the UK joined in on our daily chats. 

            Early the next morning Norma, myself and of course Spectra were of on our journeys again, but this time all alone. 35 miles later we dropped anchor with 1.1 meters below our keel about 100 meters from the golden sandy beaches of Normans Cay, a site chosen for two reasons; One, it was about half way to Nassau and; Two,

it shared a name with Norma’s late father. No sooner had we dropped anchor than we were joined by a couple from the only other boat in the anchorage who popped over in their dinghy for a chat. I must admit I have completely forgotten their names but he was from Manchester and she was from Belgium, they were making their way south from Florida to do a loop of the Bahamas before heading back up again. They seemed a very nice couple and we did give them our Spectra card with the blog details on it, so if you read this nice couple from Normans Cay, sorry about forgetting your names and please drop us an email, oops. Later, while Norma busied herself with painting a masterpiece of Normans Cay I got on with carving a piece of driftwood with our names, why? well you will have to keep reading in order to find that out, the carving is for a rendezvous in Exuma park so see the blog next week sometime.

 

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Normans Cay by Norma

 

            Today it was up to Nassau and a 45 mile trip. After nearly two weeks of steady 15 to 20 knot trade wind conditions the winds have gone light on us and so as the day progressed I had to steadily put more and more sails up in a vain attempt to keep the average speed going. Finally we were flying the full mainsail, full mizzen sail, full foresail, poled out to starboard, and our big cruising chute flying out to port, this gave us a total sail area of around 296 square meters, or in old money 3200 square feet, which is an awful lot of canvas hanging in the wind.

 

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All sails flying on a beautiful calm day

 

But, as if to thwart all of our efforts, the wind just kept on dropping and so eventually we were the last yacht out there that was actually sailing and I had to bow to the inevitable, pull all of those sails down, turn the engine on, and motor for the last 20 miles. The upside of this was that it gave me the opportunity to run the water maker all of the way and we arrived in Nassau with full water tanks and full batteries, so we will be all nicely showered and smelling fresh for our appointment at the US Embassy on Tuesday morning. The trip up was pretty uneventful apart from the constant sail changes and the surreal experience of always having the bottom in sight. When you are sailing on the Great Bahamas bank you rarely find depths greater than 6 meters, in fact you usually find yourself sailing around with just 2-3 meters below the keel. This goes on for mile after mile with no land in sight and because the water is so crystal clear a glance over the side clearly shows every feature on the sea bed. This can be a very disconcerting experience, particularly when you come across boats in the middle of nowhere who have just dropped anchor and stopped for a while or even for the night! Later in the day as Providence Island grew large we were joined by a really big bottle nose dolphin as we began our final run into Nassau town. He was certainly a big fellow and as he glided along under our bowsprit he kept turning on his side to watch us watching him, it was no coincidence there was a definite interest there from both parties. Oddly enough we were so fascinated that for once we didn’t grab for the cameras but just took the time to enjoy the moment, sorry folks no pics this time.

 

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Approaching the anchorage in the centre of Nassau

 

We are now anchored in the centre of Nassau and have spotted our first building with more than two floors since leaving Puerto Rico, tomorrow we go ashore to find the embassy and have a look around.

 

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One of the unpretentious little places that line the inlet.

 

I will write again on Tuesday evening after our visa interviews as we will then know where we will be going next…….Talk soon.

 

 

PS: we are still looking for some extra crew to come back across the Atlantic at the beginning of June.

Three legs of about 2 weeks each,  each leg should take 7 to 10 days so allow 2 weeks to include changeovers and shore time. The legs are:

Norfolk Virginia to Bermuda,

Bermuda to the Azores,

Azores to Cork

….anyone interested in all or part? Please drop us a line.

 

Spectra {CHANGE TO AT} mailasail {DOT} com

 

No attachment or pics please as this is a very low bandwidth satellite link and costs a small fortune per minute for downloads and they block up my weather reports.

 

If you want to send normal email pics attachment etc.

Paul {DOT} russell732 {CHANGE TO AT} hotmail {DOT} co {DOT} uk and I will pick it up when I am on WiFi