How Do They Get the Crazy in the Kalik? The Secret Revealed!

Staniel Cay – 5 miles in dinghy, 2 kilometres walked, 500 metres snorkelled

The Staniel Cay Yacht Club was packed. We had claimed the last three stools around the bar and all the tables in the restaurant and lounge areas were full. It felt like a Friday in the regular world, but here? Tuesday.

The bar was square shaped, staff behind the bar were roundish, and the patrons were a delectable assortment of rail thin sailors, uniformed superyacht crew, well-muscled American Hulksters and their surgically enhanced partners, dreadlocked vagabonds, boutique resort tourists, and us, who others may have described as standard issue Canadian cruisers, but I would call us undercover social scientists as we scanned the faces and bodies of the people gathered, guessing their histories and motivations, on the sly.

Ana took a sip from her bottle and said, “I love these Sands Radlers. They’re way better than the Kalik ones. Those have a funny aftertaste.”

“You mean that little metallic zing you feel after every sip,” I said, sipping my Kalik and experiencing a little metallic zing.

“Yeah, that’s exactly it. What is that, anyway? It’s gross.”

“That’s the crazy you’re tasting. The crazy they put in the Kalik.”

She looked at me with her eyebrows raised in a doubtful fashion, a look I’ve become accustomed to over the years. Stella leaned back on her stool, waiting for what might come next. I continued.

“Have you ever heard of the Greek hero Achilles and his mighty spear? Well, after the death of Achilles and the subsequent fall of Troy, a Greek army slave named Gerry Kalik, under the cover of night, creeped out onto the blood-soaked battlefield plain, found the sacred spear of Achilles, and hid it in one of the ships. He survived the campaign and eventually made it back to Greece, gained his freedom, and took the spear with him as he travelled the globe, on his own adventures.” I paused to take a sip of my Kalik, in a dramatic fashion, then continued. “Gerry Kalik, through a series of misadventures, wound up shipwrecked in Nassau and was down to nothing but his loincloth, a parchment scroll inked with an ancient beer recipe he had stolen from a wandering monk back in Constantinople, and the spear of Achilles, which he had cleverly disguised as a walking stick. There, Gerry took up a new career – pirating – but during his weekends off and public holidays he made beer using the recipe but added a secret ingredient. Within each bottle of beer, which came to be known as Kalik, he would add the tiniest of shavings from Achilles’ mighty spear. These shavings acted as a powerful addictive agent, but more importantly, would consistently produce berserker behavior in those that consumed enough of it, typically seven bottles. Gerry Kalik was himself killed in a brawl right here in Staniel Cay after a bunch of his fellow pirating crew got into the Kalik kegs stored in the bowels of the ship and went crazy – burning, stabbing, slashing, pulverizing, and bashing everything and everyone on the island. None survived, but Gerry had wisely provided his sons with a map to where he had buried a chest containing the beer recipe and precise instructions for taking scrapings from the spear, which was now disguised as a coat rack in the family home. The Kalik descendants have carried on this tradition since then and that, my dear, is the origin of the unusual metallic zing you get after taking a sip of Kalik and why I barely survived my own time here in the Bahamas in my 20’s.”Ana looked at me and said, “What happens when the spear runs out? It can’t last forever.”

“Gerry also stole Odysseus’ war girdle. It supposedly had the same properties and is still buried in Nassau somewhere,” I said, taking another sip of my Kalik and feeling a great surge of creative storytelling.

“I’ll stick with the Sands Radler.”

“How many Kalik have you drank during this trip, Dad?” Stella asked.

“Uh, maybe 10?” I said nervously.

“At least 20,” Stella said.

“Way more than 30,” Ana added.

After a little mental arithmetic and taking another sip of my Kalik I said, “That’s probably right, but as I’m now older and wiser, I’ve been careful to spread them out evenly and not drink too many at once, otherwise SeaLight and me might be lodged in the bottom of the sea and you two would be floating towards Cuba in the dinghy.”

It had been a day of boat chores and a little bit of fun. I started the day by taking the bottle of Barkeepers Friend, a toothbrush, and a pail of fresh water and scrubbing off all the rust I could find growing on the stainless steel throughout the exterior of the boat. Next, I took the dinghy over to White Seal, had a cup of tea with Malakai and Mary, then helped them with troubleshooting a cranky engine vibration problem. We removed the spent anode from the propellor shaft, which may or may not have been contributing to the problem, but they were going to monitor the engine performance to see if it made a difference, then replace the anode.

Once the girls were ready, the three of us took the dinghy into Staniel Cay and went for a walk, stopping at the grocery store along the way and finding a severely depleted inventory, getting our propane tank refilled, then ending up at the Flying Pig café for a lunch of Chicken in Da Bag for me (just a fried chicken thigh and fries, no bag) and tuna melts for the ladies. We returned to the yacht club to watch the nurse sharks for a while and today there must have been thirty of them.

We did a couple more small boat jobs back on SeaLight, including cleaning out the composting toilet (one of my favourites) then the girls got busy with trying to find Stella the best deal on a new phone, applying for summer jobs, and Ana did some Newport stuff while I went spearfishing. I bagged two reef fish today – another squirrelfish and a Blue Runner, taken from reefs out near the ocean cut which was manageable with the slack tide. On the way back I stopped at the Grotto for a little snorkelling and found myself within the cavern completely alone. It was admittedly a little spooky, but I enjoyed it. I was surprised to see very few fish there, then I remembered an incident the day before. After Stella and I had snorkelled in the Grotto and around the island and were back in the dinghy, a boisterous American fellow swam up to us, then stood up in the shallow water, exposing his red, white, and blue swimming shorts, and started talking.

“You guys like the Grotto?”

“Yeah, it’s amazing,” I answered.

“Did you see all the fish?” he asked excitedly.

“Sure did.”

“You want to know the secret to seeing even more fish?”

Stella looked at me, I looked at her, then we both looked at him.

“What’s the secret?” Stella asked.

“Squeeze cheese,” he said confidently. “You take a can of pressurized cheese in there with you and spray it underwater.”

“You shoot that toxic, foul, nasty, revolting spray cheese in the pristine Grotto water?” I asked.

“You bet. Gone through four cans already. The fish love it! Well, see y’all later,” he said as he turned and shuffled through the shallows towards his dinghy – the one with the 40 horsepower engine.

So it seemed The Great Squeeze Cheese Grotto Massacre of 2025 had wiped out the local fish population. Hopefully new ones come back someday.

We finished our evening by stapling what remained of our wind-beaten Newport Yacht Club burgee to a rare available spot on one of the rafters in the Staniel Cay Yacht Club, thereby cementing our incredible time and experiences here for perpetuity, or at least until the rest of the burgee disintegrated.

Farmers Cay to Black Point to Staniel Cay

Farmers Cay to Staniel Cay – 23 nautical miles sailed, 3 miles in dinghy, 200 metres snorkelled

By 9am we had traveled from Farmers Cay to Black Point on the calm and protected west side of the Exumas. There, the girls did laundry at Rockside, the best laundromat in the Bahamas, while I took our water jugs to the nearby beach and filled them up from the high pressure fire hose water tap. An American couple was there too filling up a few jugs, and as we were chatting a Bahamian in a white truck with some sort of government logo pulled over.

“What are you guys doing there?” he said.

“We’re getting water,” I replied.

“You can’t do that,” he said. “That’s not a public tap, you’re stealing.”

“Really? Do you know this water source is identified on all the boating apps? There are many cruisers who use it. Why is it even here if people aren’t meant to use it?”

“It should have a lock on it. You guys go ahead and fill up your jugs, but don’t use it again.”

“What about that free tap in the town centre that people use all the time to fill up jugs. We see locals and cruisers there constantly.”

“That’s stealing too.”

I hope he went back to his office, got a big thick lock, locked up the valve on the tap, then put comments on the free boating apps telling people it was not for public use, and asked the administrators to remove it from their applications. But I’m 99% sure that none of those things will happen.

Our buddies in Waddington were anchored near us, so I stopped and had a visit with Ben. Their plan to continue to Georgetown was thwarted by the high winds, so they had turned north instead, but sailed further than us, which provided time for the tidal currents to ease, and by the time they arrived here in Black Point the conditions through the cut were okay.

I went into Rockside to pick up the girls at 11:30 and Ben was just dropping off Kate to do their laundry, so we had a chat with her before returning to SeaLight, pulling anchor and continuing along our way. Two hours later we dropped the hook near Thunderball Grotto in Staniel Cay. Along the way Ana discovered that our friends from White Seal – Malakei and Mary – had returned to Staniel Cay from an unplanned trip back to Nassau. Ana had taken a largish ham out of the freezer for dinner so she asked them to join us.

At 4:30 I noticed the tidal current had slackened and low tide approached, so Stella and I went to the grotto for some snorkelling. Inside the cavern was great like before, but there were at least six other people there, which made it a bit cramped, so instead we swam through the island, popped out the east side, and snorkelled around the north side and back to where we anchored the dinghy. The coral was incredible and fish abundant. The coral here was bright blue and a penetrating orange colour, with fans of brilliant red. This was a strict no fishing zone, and the fishes seemed to know it as they gathered in large groups, picking away at the coral, unafraid of the large creatures with arms and legs swimming above and around them.

Malakei and Mary arrived at 6 for a round of sundowner drinks then a fantastic meal of oven roasted potatoes, sliced ham, coleslaw, and chocolate cupcakes and a delicious blueberry pound cake they brought over. We had a great chat and a lovely evening.

A Dead Phone, A Goombay Smash, A Happy Hour, A Fine Cigar

Staniel Cay – 2 kilometres walked, 1 miles in dinghy, several metres snorkelled

I lay on my back on the SeaLight’s deck with a fine Robusto cigar, a skinny rum and cola, and a blanket of stars to ponder. I can hear the girls down below working on Stella’s waterlogged iPhone, with Gipsy Kings singing in the background. Every few minutes a shriek of laughter echos across the water from the Staniel Cay Yacht Club. It is an excessively moist evening and water droplets hang off everything – the lifelines, the shrouds, the spreaders, the cabin deck itself. I smoke my cigar, enjoying the calm and tranquility, dosed by the nicotine drug, which I partake in infrequently enough to keep it significant. It brings soothing thoughts. How much I love my children. How much I love my wife. The incredible people we keep meeting. And how absurdly fortunate we are to be here, in this place, right now.

It had been an interesting day.

Stella and I began with an early morning visit to the Grotto, at the more challenging high tide. It was even better than yesterday as the sun shone directly into the holes on top of the rock ceiling, decorating the resident fish with sunlight, drawing out their brilliant colours. The gaps in the rock yesterday were now covered by water, making the cave smaller and closer, more intimate. Stella had secured her iPhone in a waterproof case and took dozens of photos of the fish, the cavern, and us beneath the water frolicking with the marine life. There were others in the Grotto with us for a while then we were all alone, a perfect moment.

The high tide did have its challenges, especially as the tidal current was still flowing and even stronger when we tried to leave. With the high tide we had to swim beneath the rocks, and the passage out was tough as the current was raging and it took everything we had to swim against it. I made it out first then grabbed a rock ledge to brace myself and turned to watch Stella. Her fin got caught in a rope and she stopped, then started to panic, but was able to kick herself loose. I reached in and gave her a pull to help her out and she made it okay. But it was a tough swim back to the dinghy through the current, which was anchored further away than yesterday, and by the time we reached it we were both exhausted.

Back at SeaLight, Stella removed her iPhone to find it soaked with seawater, despite our previous test of the case’s waterproofing with tissue paper. Ana rinsed it with freshwater, as per the online instructions for recovery, then used a hairdryer on it. As this operation was underway we also decided to defrost the freezing section of the small refrigerator as the contents had melded into a single mass of immovable and impenetrable ice, pork, chicken, ground beef, and sausages.

We took a break from those fun activities for a visit to town. After a kind, one-armed Bahamian man in a truck relieved me of the garbage bag I was carrying (saving me a mile-long trek to the dump), we walked to the General Store which was well stocked with groceries and had a surprisingly large collection of marine supplies - the important ones like plumbing fittings, connectors, marine wire, nuts, bolts, and screws. We picked up a few things, then continued our exploratory walk to the airport, and popped into the adjacent art gallery and store, then continued onto the Flying Pig Café which was located within the Embrace Resort, a nice place with cute rooms and a small pool. At the café we ordered our drinks then sat down in the air conditioned area, which was a nice break from the 25 degrees and full sunshine outside. Ana sipped her coffee and smiled. I had a slug of my Kalik and smiled. Anna took a drink of her Coke and smiled. Stella eyed her drink suspiciously, had a sip, pulled an ugly face and said, “Dad, try this. Does it taste boozy to you?”

I had a sip. Oh yeah, it was boozy all right.

“Hey,” I said to the proprietor. “What’s in this drink?”

“It’s a Goombay Smash,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.

“You ordered a Goombay Smash?” I asked Stella. “Bit early for a cocktail, don’t you think?”

“I just ordered a Goombay. It’s supposed to be soda or juice or something.”

The server rushed over a can of Goombay pop. Stella slid her drink over to me. “You can have the Smash, Dad.” She knew I wouldn’t let a good drink go to waste.

We enjoyed our drinks to the sounds of the fine Bruno Mars setlist playing loudly on the television then continued our journey. We walked the dirt road, spotting lizards, eyeballing the white mansion in the distance, and stopped at a very new-looking playground that was already overcome with weeds, very strange. By then we had covered most of the island so went back to the yacht club to visit the nurse sharks. A two-armed Bahamian man at the fish cleaning station showed us a trick. He started banging a piece of wood on the fish cleaning table and the nurse sharks swarmed in from everywhere, looking for treats! He said it was safe to touch them so I walked down the stairs and ran my hands down the rough skin of a few of them as they swam by. When they realized I did not have a fish offering for them, they buggered off.

We returned to the boat to finish off the fridge project and try to power up Stella’s phone, which failed, then returned to the yacht club for the 4 – 6pm happy hour featuring three Sands beers for twelve bucks, best deal on the island. We tried to cheer Stella up as her mood had soured after realizing the 8,000 photos she had on her phone (not backed up), might be goners.  But Ana did have a spare iPhone she had brought along in the case of an emergency just like this, so at least she would have something for communication. Stella and Anna played another game of pool while Ana and I chatted and watched the crowd, wondering how many billionaires and celebrities had sat in these seats over the decades. There is little doubt Jimmy Buffett had been here many times over the years, and probably came up with a few song ideas through a haze of beer, tequila shots, and cigarette smoke. We had a lot of fun and relished this moment, in this most iconic of Caribbean locations, the Staniel Cay Yacht Club.

On the way back to SeaLight we stopped at White Seal to say goodbye to Malakei, Mary, and Michael as we planned to leave the next day and they were sticking around. I had no doubt we’d be seeing White Seal further along the route in later days.

Which brings me back to my cigar. Just as I had smoked it down to the nub, Ben and Kate paddled over for a drink and chat and to say goodbye as they were going to hang in Staniel a while longer. We had another excellent visit, but I started getting tired so had to wander the boat for a while, and joined the girls in the cabin watching a horror movie for a bit. Shortly after that we wrapped up the evening and retired to our respective boats, but sure to meet again soon…somewhere.

Staniel Cay, Thunderball Grotto, Baby Sharks, and Fresh Bread

Staniel Cay – 1 kilometre walked, 3 miles in dinghy, 2 miles paddled, several metres snorkelled

I was awoken by the wail of a squawking rooster. This doesn’t happen frequently at anchor in the ocean.

It had been many days or perhaps weeks since I’d last used our paddleboard so I took advantage of the light winds, slight current, and sunny early morning to go for a ride. Despite the dozens of boats, the anchorage was quiet and still and I saw no people as I paddled towards Pig Beach (and spotted the offending roosters) then along the shoreline. A disturbance on the water surface caught my attention - a flying fish, the first I’d seen. I also saw many starfish lying on the bottom, then a stingray, then a nurse shark. I did a great loop around the anchorage, about 2 miles, and by the time I returned to SeaLight my triceps and back were groaning.

Once the ladies were up and ready we took the dinghy into Pig Beach, where there was already one other boat there, and a few pigs swimming around in the water. As we approached the shoreline we were surprised by the number of pigs on the beach, and the bulk of some of them. One swam up to the dinghy, with his two perfectly round nose holes above the water, drawing air. Stella had a bag of small carrots and tossed one his way but he seemed unable to see it and instead just kept following us around. We could see there were baby piglets on the beach so I brought the dinghy in for a closer look.

Bad idea.

As the bow of the dinghy touched the shoreline we were swarmed by the famous swimming pigs of Exuma, looking for handouts. One big one thrust his sandy head and drippy mouth into the boat and grabbed the bag of carrots from Stella’s hand. Another held his mouth wide open, yellowed teeth and pallid pink tonsils exposed, waiting for a snack. One Anna screamed and the other Ana yelled. I punched the engine into reverse and skeedaddled away from the voracious pig scrum. It was then I noticed a large sign on the beach warning, “Feed pigs from your boat only. Do not go to shore. The pigs bite.”

Were the pigs cute? I’d say no. They were not the fat little pink ones we see at home; no, they were more like wild boars, with coarse long hair, long faces, spoke in deep grunts, and some had curved tusks. The little ones were cute, but we couldn’t get close enough for a good look. But seeing the pigs in their unnatural habitat was certainly an experience.

From here we dinghy’d into the Staniel Cay Yacht Club, which took a very long time, so I decided to return to the boat and move it in closer to the Thunderball Anchorage, which was right next to the Grotto and near the village. By the time I returned to shore, the girls had already walked the island and were on the dock watching the many nurse sharks clustered near the fish cleaning station, with some of the other cruisers actually sitting in the water trying to pet them. As we watched, two baby nurse sharks appeared and we involuntarily started singing the song. How often in life do you get to sing Baby Shark when there’s actually a baby shark in front of you.

Ana took me on a guided tour of the island while the girls went into the yacht club to play pool. The community itself has a population of just over a hundred permanent residents and was established in 1783 with the Staniel Cay Yacht Club commencing operations in 1956. Outside the property lines of the finely groomed yacht club we found all the signs of an economically-challenged community – severely weathered homes, dull grey cinderblocks lying haphazardly in yards and on the roadside, wind-swept garbage gathered in groves of bushes, dented and beaten vehicles and golf carts, stray dogs, flickering power, corn struggling to grow in front yards, and shades of rust everywhere. The only evidence of prosperity were the fancy yachts on the docks at the yacht club and some well-kept tourist cabins and bungalows nestled into the areas with ocean views, reserved for those of privilege and means. There were a number of shops – two small grocery stores (one pink, one blue), a dive shop, a clothing shop, two restaurants, a water station, and another larger general store we didn’t get to (have to save something for tomorrow).

The yacht club looked to be the center of activity on the island and was open to all. I wandered through the building to look at the decades old framed photographs of huge fish catches, parties, locals in school uniform, family photos, images from the crew of a 007 movie Thunderball, filmed here in the 60’s. Hung from the ceiling were dozens of pennants, some for sports teams, some custom, brought by visiting boaters. There was a separate dining room, with molding oak crown moulding and a dinner menu with prices that brought tears to one’s eyes. The giant wooden wrap-around bar whispered secret tales of romances sparked, cash exchanged, alcohol-fueled arguments, lies told, truths revealed. The girls played pool, dropping balls infrequently, while Ana and I relaxed on comfy chairs, scanning our surroundings. This was a cool place.

We returned to the boat and had lunch. I made myself a conch salad from our recent catch and the girls had grilled-cheese sandwiches crafted with fresh bread bought from a kind local at the roadside table bakery only an hour before. Post lunch plans to snorkel were telepathically scrapped in favour of cockpit and cabin naps.

I woke up sometime later to find Waddington anchored close to us, so I splashed some water on my face and rowed over for a visit and a sampling of some delicious local rum Ben and Kate had picked up in Rock Sound, Eleuthera. As it was nearing the end of the day, I returned to the boat and gathered the girls and snorkeling gear for a late afternoon, slack tide visit to Thunderball Grotto.

The Grotto is a mushroom shaped island that can be accessed most easily at low tide by swimming through one of the various holes in the rock at the waterline. Upon entering, you find yourself in a marine wonderland with hundreds of colourful fishes around you, looking for a handout. The water is 15 to 20 feet deep, clear, and you look up to see a huge rock dome above you, with holes far above allowing sunlight into the secret cave. We brought saltine crackers and bread chunks and fed the fishes while Ben recorded the feeding frenzy on a phone in a waterproof case. We swam in the cave for a while, then Stella and I went out the other side and found a huge coral reef, full of fishes, just outside the island. We hadn’t timed the tide quite right so there was still a bit of a current we had to fight through to get back into the cave. Anna had decided to stay in the dingy, wrapped in a towel, not entirely comfortable with swimming into a dark cave, but we’re hoping she might give it a try tomorrow.

Ben and Kate came over for a long overdue sundowner and we sat together for hours in SeaLight’s cockpit trading stories and listening to music as darkness fell, the strong south winds gathered strength, and the boat bounced and swung in the waves.

Exploring Shroud Cay and Onwards to Staniel Cay for a Birthday Party

Shroud Cay to Staniel Cay – 31 nautical miles sailed, 7 miles in dinghy

When I arrived by dinghy at sailing vessel Waddington at 7:30 am, Ben was in the cockpit, shirtless with his wavy blonde hair sticking up in strange ways and Kate was staggering slightly, wiping sleep nuggets from her eyes.

“Good morning Waddington!” I announced. It was great to see them again.

I passed over the generator we had picked up for them in Florida then hopped aboard for a visit and we caught up on each others’ news. Somehow the previous afternoon when I was out for my exploratory dinghy ride, I had whizzed by them and not noticed their boat, wasting an opportunity for afternoon rum drinking.

Ben and Kate got ready and moved their boat closer to ours then we all left in the dinghies to explore the mangrove streams, timing it perfectly as it was nearing high tide which would give us a nice little push up the channels into the interior of the island. A series of tidal channels run into and right through Shroud Cay and we travelled up one of them all the way to a beach on the other side of the island, where we had to hand tow the dinghies in for the last bit that became too shallow to navigate. The channel was quite narrow, maybe four feet deep, invisible clear, bordered by thick mangroves with their finger-like roots grasping into the bottom, and home to many turtles – we spotted three of them.

After exploring the beach we backtracked and found another channel which led to the Washing Machine – a narrow channel with a heavy current running out to the ocean, which you can ride through then get popped out the other side and pulled to safety by eddy currents, or by just walking through the shallow water to the shore. Ben, Kate, and I gave it a try, and we enjoyed the solitude as we were the only people there…but soon another dinghy arrived, a very fancy one, being driven by what were surely superyacht staff, and the four passengers were inexplicably wearing bright yellow Helly Hansen survival suits, like they had just arrived from a Arctic expedition. They had a look then immediately turned and left. But minutes afterward, a different dinghy arrived, then another, then another, and soon the dinks were lined up on the beach and people were flinging themselves into the washing machine. It was fun.

We made a plan to rendezvous with Ben and Kate tomorrow and made our way back to the boat then pulled anchor and set sail for Staniel Cay, which is the sailing hub for the central Exumas. It was a lovely 31 mile run with the headsail catching full wind, sun bright and high in the sky after the thick layer of morning clouds had burned off, and some wonderful moments making custom birthday cards for our friend Mary’s 30th birthday, then sitting on the top deck watching the patterns of sea grass and coral on the bottom as we whizzed through less then twelve feet of water much of the way.

Because we arrived at low tide, we couldn’t get through the shallow waters leading to the area near Staniel Cay Yacht Club, where Malekai and Mary on White Seal were anchored, so instead we dropped the hook around the corner near Pig Beach, home to the famous swimming pigs of the Exumas. I went for an ocean bath, then grabbed the goggles to have a look around. What did I see but a big reef shark, off our bow, swimming rapidly across the bottom, kicking up clouds of silt in his path, hurrying as if late for an appointment. After dinner, as I was getting ready to pick up the crew of White Seal for birthday drinks, Ana spotted a nurse shark circling our dinghy, and we all had a good look at it.

I picked up Mary, Malekei, and Malekei’s dad Michael, who had just arrived from Indiana in the afternoon and brought them back to SeaLight for a birthday party. Ana had put together a charcuterie board, I poured some rum and colas, and we sat and chatted in the cockpit as the birthday playlist Stella and Anna had crafted played in the background. We gave Mary her four birthday cards and a present – a sailing novel wrapped in pages torn from an unused section of the ICW Cruising Guide. She seemed to love it all.

After a 2am start to his day, Michael was losing steam so I ran the White Seal crew back to their boat beneath a bright full moon, flanked by dozens of shimmering anchor lights in the bay, aligned like constellations from a distant galaxy.