Eleuthera

We finally left Nassau on Christmas morning and headed towards the northern tip of Eleuthera, near the town of Spanish Wells.

The first half of the trip was great. We sailed across the bank and were cruising comfortably at 7 knots with only 1 foot waves. The half way point to Eleuthera, we had to leave the bank and head to the ocean through Fleeming Channel. About this time the wind shifted and increased, making sailing impractical. I started the motor and beat into some sizable waves. Before the day was over, I was seeing wind speeds over 30 knots and large waves.

We were heading to Royal Island and were planning on anchoring in a bay with a narrow entrance. The wind and waves kept us from getting there before sundown, and I wasn’t going to try and enter the bay in the dark, so we anchored about a mile to the southwest, which gave us enough protection from the winds.

The winds were predicted to shift from the north to the east on Thursday, so in the morning we moved to an anchorage that provided better protection from east winds. It’s also closer to Spanish Wells. I was hoping to take the dingy to town, but a neighbor in the anchorage reminded me its Boxing Day and everything is closed.

In Staniel Cay, in the Exumas, there’s an island where a farmer keeps pigs. Over the years cruisers would stop by and bring them food, scraps actually. Eventually, the pigs started to swim out to the dingy to get the food first. After a few big YouTubers showed this, its become quite the attraction. Big enough that one of the excursions at Atlantis is to fly to Staniel Cay to see the swimming pigs.

Locals not wanting to miss out started putting pigs on every cay they can and bringing tourists out. Well, Meeks Patch, the island we’re anchored off, is one of those islands.

Tour boats came all day today with tourists ready to swim with the pigs. The only problem is, from reading the reviews, these pigs haven’t learned to swim yet. No worries, the guys running this pig island added chickens and ducks. We’re anchored next to Old McDonald’s Farm, with oink oink here and a quack quack there…

Hmmm… how can I bring this back to Chicago and make a living off it?