Staniel Cay to Black Point, Great Guana Cay, Exuma, Bahamas
Today we went by dinghy into Staniel to knock out some grocery shopping. There are three options on the island for groceries, and they're all within walking distance of each other:
Isles General Enterprise, Burke's Convenience Store, and the Pink Pearl. We were familiar with Burke's and the Pink Pearl from our prior visit, and decided to start with Isles General Enterprise because we'd heard they had a small but decent hardware section where we could find a few things on our list. The funny thing about Isles is that their website makes it look like it's a gigantic grocery store with a wide selection, but they must have used stock photos as it is really a very small shop with limited items to choose from. It's no big deal because you don't EXPECT to find large grocery stores in the Exumas; it was just interesting that they chose to make it LOOK like they were the exception to the rule, as if you'd never figure out it wasn't true once you arrived in person. Skeet had noticed the Staniel Cay airport just across the street from Isles, and asked if he could walk over there to check it out while we shopped. He commented "I could spend all day at that airport, just checking out the planes." I think I've mentioned before that Skeet hopes to be a commercial airline pilot one day, and has been taking flying lessons since he was 13. Navigating from the sea AND the air seem to definitely be in his bloodstream. It'll be fun to see what he does with those interests.
After we'd checked out at Harris Teeter I mean Isles 😂, I met up with Skeet near the airport and the two of us made our way to the other shops while Ron pulled the dinghy around to a nearby dock. The Pink Pearl happened to be closed, but we found several things we needed at Burke's, which manages to house a lot of different items in its limited square footage. Prices for certain groceries like cereal were really high ($10!), so we skipped the things that could wait until we get to a larger island like George Town where we hope to fill in the gaps.
The weather is still fairly overcast and windy. Any of you who might be imagining that we are just basking in the sun and getting these amazing tans need to reimagine your imagining. 😂It's kind of like the terrible driver's license picture I came home with one time. Ok, lots of times. Ok — EVERY time. (Is there such a thing as a GOOD DL pic? Please humor me and say no). ANYWAY, Ron said, "oh, that picture's not that bad! It looks like you just got back from the beach!" Pregnant pause . . . "Beech Mountain!" Yeah. We're kinda the Beech Mountain crew of the Exuma Cays.
After a few chores and getting the groceries put away, we pulled up anchor again and made a short trip south. Our shallow draft came in handy as we misread the chart and kind of sort of landed on a sandbar as we exited Staniel, but we got lucky and didn't get stuck. Any savvy boaters in our immediate vicinity were probably laughing and pointing, but we acted like you do after you trip up some steps and pulled it off as if that was what we'd intended to do all along. 😂
We tripped on over to Great Guana Cay, set the anchor, and called it a day.
(FUN FACT: Cay is pronounced Key. I am just a WEALTH of information. 🤓)
1 hour underway; 6 nautical miles traveled
