TAYLOR ON EARTH

On day two of five, my dad had chartered a boat for my family and I through Triple A Adventures to ride around a string of the Exuma islands. We saw the homes of Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, David Copperfield’s, and a handful of other celebrity homes atop of multimillion dollar islands. Continuing on, we visited a popular snorkeling area among other chartered tours (with good reason.) We threw anchor at Thunderball Grotto, named after the famous 007 film, Thunderball. The tide was low enough for my family and several other tourists to swim into the grotto and see what it had to offer. I had brought along my own mask, snorkel, and fins, so I was ready to dive in!

There was a variety of coral and reef fish, including sergeant majors, blue and purple damsels, parrotfish, yellow tangs, and many many more. (I unfortunately do not have many pictures, but I do have video clips and will include those of the beautiful fish when I complete the video.) I went in and out of the grotto multiple times through the few entrances, sometimes with my mom or sisters, then later with my niece and nephew. After towing around my niece around and within the grotto and convincing her that the fish were nice and did not want to touch her, she had a much more enjoyable time.As the tide was coming back in, it was then time to move on to our next stop, Pig Beach! I had visited Pig Beach a few years before on a diving trip but not with family, and it was a trip. My sisters and brothers-in-law were bewildered by such a sight and it was hilarious to see their reactions to the sheer size of these feral pigs. They immediately came up to the boat expecting to be fed and our Bahamian boat hands fed them and gave us carrots to give them. We perused the beach looking for nice pigs that weren’t too big so that the kids could feed them and not be stressed.

Soon the rain began to roll in and it was time to head out. We stopped along a local Exuma island to have lunch with the crew at a buffet style restaurant with delicious mac and cheese, chicken, ribs, and lobster salad. A full stomach and couple bottles of Kalik later, we were off once more.We made a quick pit stop at a beautiful sandbar with sailboats surrounding it along the reefs. I took out the drone and captured some shots and bits of video and they came out beautifully. Eventually I made my way onto the sandbar where the rest of my family was playing in the water (because I was on the boat flying the drone) and we took pictures and the kids playfully threw sand at us.On our next stretch, we had to pass through a bit of a rain storm to make it to our last stop at Compass Cay, where we could swim in the midst of a small school of nurse sharks for a fee of $10 per person. Our boat captain cut slices of bait and chummed the water to attract the sandpaper-skinned fish. In minutes we were surrounded by these incredible creatures, allowing us to pet them and occasionally have them surprise us and touch us back. The nurse sharks ranged from three feet to twelve feet, sometimes shocking us with how broad yet gentle the bottom feeders were.After spending some time with the sharks it was finally time to head back to our starting point, essentially making a large loop around the aforementioned string of islands. Compass Cay was not originally the final stop, we were supposed to feed iguanas on another island close to where we began but a storm rolled in and we had to deal with Mother Nature a bit and roll with the cold rain and gusting wind. My sisters and niece and nephew took shelter in the enclosed bow while the rest of us buckled down. After around forty-five minutes of off and on showers and winds, we arrived back at our pier of origin and made the wet drive back to Grand Isle with a fun and adventurous day and stories to tell.