Big Majors Spot, Exumas.
Swiftwing
Sun 26 Apr 2009 15:35
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Five miles on from Black Point is Staniel
Cay and Big Majors Spot. I wanted to go here to dive into the 'Thunderball Cave'
of James Bond fame from the film by that name and to see Bacon Sandwich and Pork
Chop, a couple of the local feral swimming pigs. I'll show you them first as
they are much more interesting than pictures of caves and beaches.
 Feral pigs being fed on the beach but we
weren't going to let them off so lightly.
 Bacon Sandwich spots Bev's bag of goodies
and swims straight out for the boat.
 He collects his cabbage stalk and chases
it around the dinghy.
 Pork Chop thinks that he is missing out
and seconds later tries to get into the dinghy after the bag of
goodies.
 Bacon Sandwich having got the lions
share, Pork Chop heads off with his nose in the air. You've never seen pigs this
clean. We got out of there fairly quickly as I thought they might burst the
dinghy.
 Aha Mr. Bond you would never suspect that
this is a submarine pen. The 'Thunderball' island which looks like a
mushroom.
 About to dive for the
entrance.
 There was quite a tide running through
the cave so Bev decided to stay outside in the dinghy. The inside was completely
hollowed out to the top of the island and was completely smooth inside. There
were a couple of holes at the top allowing quite a lot of light in. I'm sorry
that I don't have a picture of the inside but I left the camera in the dinghy
and it was quite a swim against the current to get back out.
 The whole rocky coastline was eroded away
like this.
 The water was so clear that we could see
our whole anchor chain in fifteen feet of water.
 Somebody's dream ended here in our
anchorage. This boat was about 45 feet long and made of fibreglass. It didn't
look as if she had been here long but had already been stripped of anything
salvageable; even the teak planking from the cockpit had been
removed.
 Fairly typical American style boat with a
centre cockpit. The sprayhood on this type of boat stands about five feet high
and resembles a greenhouse.
 Again fairly typical. Three hundred and
sixty odd islands in the Exuma chain and quite a number of them have no
housing at all one holiday house. This one was closed up when we
passed.
 This is on the chart as a shallow passage
into this anchorage. It must only have clearance of a couple of inches at high
tide!
 Swiftwing at anchor with washing out to
dry.
 Rock head at the entrance to the
anchorage. The tide rips through here creating overfalls along the Staniel
channel.
That's all for
now.
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