Day 102: A Really Good Day

Big Majors, Exumas, Bahamas (anchored)

April 27, 2022

(socialized too late to write at night)

Thanks, sister Tish, for reminding us that necessity is the mother of invention.  John did a quick course on carburetor repair via “YouTube University” before using that teeny bag of supplies.  One thing that he needed was a very thin, but somewhat rigid piece of wire to clean the jets and ports of the carburetor.

We searched Lailia for possible items: needles and pins from our sewing box; a variety of earrings with wires in them; and ballpoint pen springs that could be straighten out.

The winning tool?  The ballpoint pen spring!

John fixed our carburetor and we are able to use the dinghy.  He also made a killswitch from a foil wrapped pen which is a decent workaround for now.

Having a dinghy is like having a car.  We’re able to quickly go places that had been fairly inaccessible with Lailia’s draft.

On our way to Staniel Cay, with its yacht club and small grocery stores, we stopped by Piggy Beach.  The feral pigs there are so used to being fed by tourists that they will swim out to boats.  Some of these pigs are huge!  We consider ourselves visitors  rather than tourists (we’re here much longer than a tourist on a quick tour) and did not feed the pigs. 

The yacht club restaurant was well-stocked and I had my first unsweet ice tea in months.  We don’t even feel badly about the ham and bacon on our club sandwich!

There’s a school of large nurse sharks at the Staniel Cay Marina.  They hang out by the fish cleaning station which is also near some concrete steps.  Their mouths are closer to that of rays; they don’t have scary teeth (instead of serrated teeth, they have teeth to crush their food) and they have two sensors to help them feel for food on the seabed.  This means they are very pet-able. 

So, I did not even try to pet the pigs but was all about petting sharks

They have the coolest skin color and texture.  Sharks in general have skin reminiscent of sandpaper, but this species has almost iridescent scales I think it’s beautiful.

We are lucky enough to have multiple boat buddies at this anchorage – some of whom we met back at the Bay of Five Pirates.  We met to watch the sunset at Cruisers Beach. 

Some of our friends came back to Lailia to continue our conversations and we stayed up way past midnight.  Our friends, Andy and Casey, are heading north in the morning because they have to meet folks in Nassau soon.  We’ve been hanging with them for several weeks and will be missing them a lot.