Kids' Visit

As is typical of life on the water, winds and tides dictated how we spent time with our visitors. To escape a west wind blow, we anchored in Pipe Creek and brought Krista, Sean and Michelle over for the morning. For half the day we hiked on Thomas Cay and then, since water is shallow through the channel in and out of  Pipe Creek, we had to leave in the early afternoon to take advantage of mid-day high tides - so we moved on to "pig beach" at the Big Majors anchorage near Staniel Cay. Sean drove the fast boat back while the rest of us rode in Sea Change. For the first 3 days of the week, we used the rented fast boat for transportation to and from the boat and to go sight seeing. In the picture above, we have just climbed to the top of one of the hills overlooking Pipe Creek.

Sean and Michelle are engaged! Michelle arrived wearing a beautiful diamond ring. No date is set or even thought of for now. In the picture, Sean and Michelle are standing in the pool at the bottom of Oven Rock Cave - one of our fast boat destinations.

Our "wet landing" at Compass Cay - at the head of a stream leading to Rachal's Bubblebath (below).

At Rachel's Bubblebath, we waded in, stood in front of the water rushing in from the sound and waited for a big wave to crash over the rocks and cover the water around us in bubbles. Eventually, we were rewarded with successively bigger waves. The last surprised us by crashing over our heads. We were all thoroughly wet and surrounded by bubbly foaming water. With the camera, I waited for a repeat that never came. We were lucky to have timed our dip in the water to get the full bubble bath experience.

Krista climbing a hill on Thomas Cay. The rope has been left by some enterprising cruiser as an aid to getting to the top. The pictures below were all taken on our hike.

Below - Pig Beach

Pigs come looking for food.

Below - Oven Rock Cave

Inside the Cave

Feeding the Nurse Sharks at Compass Cay

There are also Nurse Sharks at Staniel Cay but there are many more at Compass Cay. They hang around the dock waiting to be fed. We were told that you can put your hand on their backs to "pet" them and also that if you aren't feeding them, you can go in the water and "swim with the sharks" - at your own risk. Michelle was game to try but once again we were limited by boating constraints - we had to get everyone back to land before we lost daylight and couldn't stay to let her try!

Sitting on the deck of Atlantica cottage and waiting for sunset.

There are more good pictures but I'm out of time - so this will have to be enough. By now, the kids are back in Toronto. We all had a busy fun week.

Tomorrow, we are moving north along the Exuma chain and likely will not have much Web access for a while.

Ciao!