Thunderbolt Grotto and Moving to Black Point, Exuma Islands, The Bahamas

Dawn on Friday, December 12

And the sunrise.

This morning, the wind shifted back to the prevailing winds from the east. This meant we could finally go back to Thunderball Grotto. Coincidentally, this week Keith studied limestone rock and its erosion patterns in science. Thunderball Grotto was the perfect place to see the effects of erosion!

We needed to go at low tide. We left Kosmos at 0740. We anchored the dinghy in front of the cave.

Unfortunately, one of Keith’s fins broke, so he had to swim with only one fin. Everything in the cave looked pretty much the same as last time. This was us entering the cave.

This was the opening of the cave from the inside.

This was the ceiling, which let in plenty of light.

And a panorama

And an underwater panorama.

The current was stronger than last time. Since Keith only had one fin, Christi didn’t want him to go through the underwater holes as she was concerned about him not having enough power against the current. To be in solidarity with him, none of us went through.

Interestingly, different parts of the cave had different amounts of current. Eric swam the majority of the time, staying in the areas with less current. Christi mostly held onto the rope and kept her face in the water. Keith did about half swimming and half staying still and watching the fish.

Once we finished snorkeling, we headed back to Kosmos and showered. It was getting even rollier than it had been yesterday, and we decided it was time to move on to a more protected location. Eric consulted the charts and decided on Black Point, which was a short ride south.

Because there were some shallow spots along the route, we had to wait until high tide to leave. We pulled up anchor at about 1400. Here were some scenic shots of the Staniel area as we were leaving.

We arrived at about 1530 and dropped anchor. We were relieved to find it was much calmer than it had been at Between the Majors. Here were a couple shots of the anchorage.