#Gates50States

Perhaps you’ve picked up on a theme of our date trip posts specifically and our travels in general. We tend to GO GO GO! It may be many miles of hiking per day for days in a row in Rocky Mountain National Park or Joshua Tree National Park. When we visited Key West & Dry Tortugas NP, we had an itinerary, and we stuck with it. Our couple of days in Lisbon involved urban hiking their many steep-inclined streets. Even our paddle boarding trips involved many miles of paddling following an early AM rise to beat the high heat. We may come home tired (and in need of a vacation from our vacation), but we’ve also wrapped up our travel times with some really cool experiences and memories.

As Jenn game-planned for this particular getaway, I suggested we prioritize absolute relaxation. For the past number of years, I’ve been consuming the Wild At Heart podcast by John Eldredge and reading his books, along with the books of several of his sidekicks. He often stresses the importance of restoration and its distinction from mere relief. Relief is the bag of chips and vegging out in front of YouTube or Instagram for the evening hours. Restoration is doing what it takes to get your mind and soul back in a good place. As it relates to our time away, I wasn’t looking to accomplish big goals, or hike big miles, or obtain amazing photographs, or make anybody jealous. I was very interested in removing myself from the grind for a long enough time for my body and mind to rest. Jenn played along and planned this for us, and she succeeded in every way.

Some friends had recently visited a resort in the Bahamas, but the price point at that spot was more than we wanted to take on. After some poking around, she stumbled onto Staniel Cay Yacht Club (SCYC). With three meals & a tank of gas in a small Boston Whaler per day, and a small bungalow at the edge of the water and a stone’s throw from the marina, we were willing to give this a look.

We can’t say enough good things about SCYC. The service was friendly and fantastic, the food was really, really good, the boats were safe and sturdy, and we really enjoyed the view from our little deck over the marina where the boats from modest sailboats to 100+’ yachts came and went. For us midwesterners, observing this type of lifestyle was otherworldly. Living on a boat and tooling around the Bahamas? Perhaps going the long route and heading down to the Caribbean Islands? The ordeal of all of this, from the logistics to the cost, had never crossed our minds. We found ourselves wondering what it might be like. While it sounds great in our imaginations, and while we respect others who’ve chosen this lifestyle, we concluded it wasn’t for us.

But while we may not want to live that way full-time, snippets and tastes here and there proved to be a whole bunch of fun. We discovered taking a handful of days, loading up the boxed lunches that were prepared for us each day, along with some beach chairs, a couple of books, and a lot of sunscreen, and boating to a beach of our choosing was a great way to spend a day. We could get used to doing this from time to time.

The beaches… oh, my… we were told the Bahamas are made up of over 700 islands, most of which are uninhabited. From SCYC, there are a whole bunch of islands/beaches within a short boat ride. If you’ve made friends with others at the club, and you want to hang out on a beach with them, you’ve got lots of options. If you want a whole beach to yourself, there are plenty of alternatives, you’ll just need to be willing to search a bit. We overlapped with strangers very little during all of our beach time.

The sand bars are particularly fun, though you’ve got to pay attention to the tides. The first day were were out, we weren’t paying too much attention. After an hour or so, having pulled our boat right up onto the soft sand when we arrived, the back of our boat was resting on the sand. Yikes. It took a lot of shimmying to unstick the boat, and had we realized the whole mess a mere 30 minutes later, we’d’ve been stuck & waiting for the next high tide to come in. We didn’t make this mistake again. 🙂

But back to the sandbars. We had a bunch of fun setting up our chairs to watch the tide go out, exposing more sand to wander out onto. This made for good shelling, too. We discovered conchs here and there, and sand dollars just about everywhere!

Pirate Beach is on the north side of the island, and just about a mile walk from the club. A couple of homes/businesses had gold carts for rent, allowing one to carry gear with ease to the beach. We took advantage of this on one of the days, then we walked it the next couple of times we visited. This was such a beautiful, mostly private beach. We shared the spot with a couple of folks for short amounts of time during our stops there, but this was the furthest thing from a crowded, touristy beach.

If you’ve investigated a trip to the Bahamas, you’ve no doubt read about Pig Beach and Thunderbolt Grotto. They seem to be the highlights of so many Instagram and Facebook posts about Bahamas vacations. We skipped the Grotto, and we found Pig Beach to be way overrated. I can’t say we’re big fans of the conditions the pigs are kept in. These just aren’t selling points, I submit. Some tour groups leave early in the morning and travel long distances to arrive at Pig Beach on Big Major Cay in the morning, but this is an utter waste of time, IMO. Unless you’re staying at Staniel Cay Yacht Club or Fowl Cay (another resort nearby) don’t even spend your wonderful time in paradise traveling for the pigs… they’ll make it without you. Rather, the beaches, and the service, and the amenities at SCYC are more than compelling enough reasons to visit and spend your time and mental energy there.

I ought to point out at this time the distinct absence of post-image processing. None of my photos here, nor in the video below underwent any degree of post-image processing. I experimented a bit, but no edits I employed enhanced the photos beyond what my cameras captured on their own. The water really is this color, and it really is that clear.

Consider these important logistical items when you’re visiting SCYC…

• There’s a laundromat located a very short walk behind the club. This can come in handy when your luggage is limited by the small plane taking you to Stanie Cay. There’s also a liquor store in the laundromat. I know… genius. My suggestion: shortly after you arrive, get yourself a bottle or two of Ole Nassau coconut rum, and each day when you place your lunch order, request a can or two of Goombay Punch. Mix the two in the ratio of your choice. You can thank me later. 😉
• You can bring your own snorkel gear, or rent gear on the island. Since Covid, SCYC doesn’t provide gear.
• We flew in and out on Makers Air. Flights leave from Fort Lauderdale daily. Before you schedule a flight, make sure to work through the yacht club to obtain a discount on flights. They don’t always make this obvious, and you ought to save yourself some money.
• There are bugs on the island, particularly noseeums in the early mornings and later evenings. You can take bug spray, or sit next to someone more interesting to the bugs than you are.
• There’s certainly no city on Staniel Cay, nor is there really a town. The whole island is more like one spread out neighborhood with homes built where the land allows, and we walked everywhere we were allowed to walk.

With no real strenuous elevation gain on the island, we could get two to five miles of walking in before breakfast, and by then our boat was made ready for us to take on the day. Everything was really set up for us to enjoy ourselves.

We spoke with many of the guests staying at the club, as well as many of the boaters (yachters?) passing through, and we found we were the only first-timers. Everyone else had visited multiple times, and some had even been returning for many, many years. It was kind of a window into our future, thinking we might be the type who return again, perhaps even several or many times, and meet some first timers and tell them all about how we discovered this for ourselves and couldn’t resist staying away. Odd for us, because we don’t often like to return to the same place twice. Historically, we’d rather make new discoveries, experiences, and memories than attempt to recreate old ones. But SCYC can be different for some, and is clearly different for the scores with whom we conversed. SCYC isn’t about recreating anything. For us, it was about restoration, not merely relief. This is why I can see us visiting again. And maybe even again and again.