Staniel Cay - Bond, James Bond

Well today was our 007-themed day. First we dinghied over to Staniel Cay to have lunch (hooray for meals not prepared by me!) at Club Thunderball. Yesterday we did a walkthrough of pretty much the entire town, you could consider it a pub crawl since we had beers at two of the three bars (hooray, beer!). As I mentioned in yesterday's post, it was a crowd of four including the bartender at Happy People, and when we had drinks at Club Thunderball it was just us, David the bartender, and the New York/New Jersey channel 2 local news (everyone here has satellite). Anyway we found out that Club Thunderball was open every day for lunch so we thought today we'd check it out. David was again behind the bar, and apparently it is a one-man show most of the week since he fills all the roles of bouncer, bartender, waiter, and chef. Today was busier than yesterday as there was another couple having drinks and a large family group also having lunch. When we asked for a menu, David said there was no paper menu but the choices were hamburger or fish fingers. Both of us chose burgers with fries. Funny thing was a few minutes later we overheard the other couple asking for munchies like chips or something, and David said "well, I can make you some eggrolls". ???!!! And even though David gave the family group the same two choices we got, the dad was kind of pushy and managed to finagle some conch fritters and conch burgers. So I guess when there is no set menu you can just ask the chef "well, whattaya got back there?". I have to say that chef David made some fabulous burgers. He apologized for not having hamburger buns but he served them on toasted homemade bread (a la Sonic) and it was delicious.

After waiting a half hour after eating (we are rule-followers!) we headed over to the main attraction and the reason for the name "Club Thunderball" -- Thunderball Cave. The cave was used as a location in the James Bond movie "Thunderball" (those of you who've seen the film will probably remember it). It is a small island with a limestone cavern that you can get to by swimming through one of several passages. At low tide, which is when we went, you have plenty of clearance (18 inches) to swim right in. And unlike the other day when we tried to go to Rocky Dundas, today was a perfect day with no waves or wind, so we both snorkeled in without worrying about hitting our heads on the rock ceiling. I was amazed because I expected it to just be a little cave, but the thing was huge and was more like a natural cathedral. The main chamber was 20 feet high with several holes ("skylights") in the ceiling directly above the pool. The water below was ablaze with color and swarming with fish. The skylights sent beams of light down through the water to highlight all the brightly colored coral and reef fish. There were maybe five different passages into the cave, some were easier to get through than others (two of them you had to dive underwater and hold your breath -- I let Kevin explore those on his own). Other people had brought food (frozen peas and corn or cereal) to feed the fish, but really you didn't need it since the fish would flock right around you without hesitation. It is the best snorkeling we have seen on this trip and was definitely a highlight of the day.

To top it all off, tonight we were planning to watch "Thunderball" on DVD just to make it a Bond trifecta (Bond lunch, Bond snorkeling, Bond movie). But when we looked in our stack of DVD's I realized that I USED to have Thunderball on VHS, and we gave away all our videotapes since they took up too much room! I've got "Dr. No", "From Russia With Love", or "Goldfinger", but sadly no "Thunderball". It's a shame since we were so looking forward to seeing the cave. I will make it up by letting Kevin suffer through my best (worst) Sean Connery impression. "Bond, Jamesh Bond"..."shaken not shtirred"...you know the drill.