A Fool's Gambit

So... admittedly, I fell behind in blogging. My computer died. But I'm catching up now. But the dates of these posts won't let you know that I fell behind.

Anyway, after the Rocky Dundas, we cruised on down to Sampson Cay for a day or two. We didn't do much there. There was a nice little marina (that we, of course, didn't use), and some decent coral around. There was ice cream at the shop at the marina. That was nice. But we pretty quickly headed over to Staniel Cay to check out Thunderball Grotto and the small township on the island.

What can I say? Thunderball Grotto is awesome. It's the northernmost of the rocks located just east of the marker on the Staniel Cay map link above. Underwater photography with a little digital camera doesn't do it justice. But it's posted here anyway. It's really cool. They filmed scenes for the Bond movie 'Thunderball' there. I'll assume they named the cave after the movie, and not vice-versa. The town on Staniel Cay is small and simple. There's a couple of poorly stocked stores to get food, and a dump to dispose of garbage. That was nice. But for the most part, we didn't spend much time in town.

I managed to spear a small gray snapper, and I used him for bait to catch a couple of decent-sized snapper. Finally! I could enjoy some fish. There was some decent shallow reef to snorkel around, and I caught a slipper lobster. It was the first time I'd ever seen a slipper lobster in real life. And he was tasty.

With a cold front coming in, we decided to hide out back up by Sampson Cay, because the harbor was well protected, and because we could steal internet. (That's why I managed to post pictures up through Sampson Cay, but am only now getting around to writing about it and everything that follows.) We spent several days at Sampson Cay before heading further on to Black Point settlement, on Great Guana Cay.