Staniel Cay and Boat Work

We spent one more lovely evening with our new Portland friends (who we never met in portland) aboard svClarity… and then in the morning made our way back north to our favorite area so far around Staniel Cay. We were tempted to head all the way back to our little spot (comfort zone) tucked in behind Gaulin Cay, but decided to anchor just outside of Staniel so that we had access to some snorkel spots we’ve been drooling over for a while.

Staniel Cay is a small, quaint and mostly remote island…but it does have the marina, a few small resorts and guest houses, and seems to be the hub for guests trying to get into the Exumas to experience pig beach or the lizards, etc. It’s a lovely island and has been the spot we run back and forth to from Gaulin as needs arise (only a couple mile trek in the dinghy and mostly protected from big seas). Only two small stores here (one known as the “Blue Store” and one as the “Pink Store”, and neither bigger than the size of maybe a living room, and both only get a new shipment of supplies from the “mail boat” 3 times every month, BUT food is food and we appreciate having it as close as it is.

Without them… we’d be heading back to Nassau or eating only what we catch. Lucky for us we’ve been doing okay catching dinner… but it’s nice to have a few other items to supplement! ;)

It felt crowded compared to what we’ve grown used to, but honestly there were only a few other boats here and we were within a quick snorkel of the famed “thunderball grotto”. A small rock island that has a giant cave inside and was famously used in the Bond flick of the same name. You can only enter the cave at low tide when the cave entrance becomes exposed, so we tried to time our tides with early morning or late evening when the tour boats wouldn’t yet be dropping off people. Sometimes we scored and had the place to ourselves… sometimes it was a clown show of tourists with people floating on noodles, clamoring around the cave and jumping into the hidden pool from the hole above… at which point we’d turn around, head back to the boat and wait for the next low tide.

Our (brand new) watermaker has been causing us trouble ever since it was installed and despite countless hours spent troubleshooting by Jen, the company has finally concluded that we may have gotten a lemon in terms of our main watermaker “membrane”, which is key to making/desalinating water.

This caused us a bit of grief as we’ve heard ever since being back in FL the difficulties/impossibilities of shipping anything to the Bahamas without paying at least 40% duty/taxes, but we’ve also started hearing about people bringing things into Staniel Cay via the airline, Watermaker Air (the irony of that name isn’t lost on us as we look into shipping parts for our defunct watermaker).

Turns out, despite how remote Staniel is and the very limited options even for getting simple supplies or groceries… that you can actually have someone drop a part off at Watermaker Air in FL and the pilot will carry it aboard and deliver it directly to the marina here. We weren’t going to hold out breath… but within a few days we were looking at a nicely wrapped package containing our new membrane. Yay! Success!!
Jen did a quick install while we talked through the process with the HQ and we’re back up and running!

Sadly, that wouldn’t be the end of our troubles here.

The very next day Jen went to shore to provision… luckily this time we were anchored not far away vs our typically much longer trip over from Gaulin, and the outboard motor refused to start (yet again). She was rescued in short order by a few boys onshore who towed her and the dinghy back to the big boat. Right time right place, I guesss.

We thought we had solved this problem back around Nassau, and now that we’re traveling a bit further afield (sometimes miles a day to fish, lobster or shop/provision) by dinghy alone we simply have to have more confidence in the outboard in order to be able to continue south. It is our daily driver after all.

Don’t get me wrong, we aren’t in any hurry to leave this area - but this just jumped to the top of our list and needs to be dealt with, and now that we’ve had a good experience shipping something in… went ahead and ordered a new outboard. It won’t be able to fly in on Watermaker Air and will instead have to come in on the mailboat from Nassau… so it will take a few days longer but still seems well worth the wait (and the expense, sadly). Frankly, our first thought was that we’d have to return to Nassau… so we’ll take it (and thrilled to have stumbled over the local knowledge to save us the trip).