Warderick Wells

We've spent the last three days at Warderick Wells, one of the jewels of the Exumas. It is in the heart of the Exuma Land and Sea Park and has many things to keep you busy. For us, the most attractive feature of the area are the hiking trails.

On our first day, we repeated a hike we took during our visit in 2009. We visited the blow holes on Boo-Boo peak, which were quiet as we arrived too close to low tide. We searched for and found the board we left two years ago on Boo-Boo peak, where it is customary for cruisers to leave a piece of driftwood marked with the boat's name and date of visit. Then we continued down to the beach on the Exuma Sound and then back across the Cay to some beaches on the Yellow Banks side of the Cay where we were moored. These beaches are among the best I have seen anywhere. Talcum-fine white sand, turquoise waters and live starfish, conch and other sea life in abundance.

That afternoon, we joined about 20 other cruisers for drinks and snacks down on one of the beaches. Quinn was very happy to find Glen, another 5 year old to play with and they spent 2 hours playing on the beach and in the surf. Unfortunately, Glen's family were headed north to the Abacos on a tight schedule so we couldn't spend more time with them. The afternoon was fun and we met several cruisers who we expect to see more of over the next several weeks as we are all working southward.

Our second day we went for a longer hike to the south end of the cay. We saw ruins of the abandoned loyalist settlement founded during the US Revolutionary War, a hideout used by pirates with a fresh water well, as well as several more beautiful beaches and great vistas. The "trails" were very rugged, often requiring stepping from jagged boulder to boulder, skirting 20-foot deep holes in the limestone. Quinn did very well, but was happy when we were finished with the rough trails and could stick to the beaches the rest of the way back to our dinghy.

Speaking of the dinghy, when we beached the dinghy in preparation for our hike I thought it was low tide. This assumption was supported by the fact that I had to row the last 100 yards in to the beach as it was very shallow and flat. Concerned about a rising tide, I dragged the dinghy up to the high water mark on the beach and tied it to a tree. As it turned out, I needn't have bothered. In fact, it was not low tide when we left the dinghy, but WAS when we returned several hours later. When we crested the rise by the beach where our dinghy was secured I was dismayed to find that the water that I had rowed over had disappeared and our dinghy was stranded 100 yards from any water.

We had three options. One was to swim out to Mirasol to wait for the tide. As Mirasol was about a quarter mile away and we were tired from the hike this was a poor option. The second option was to sit on the beach and wait for the tide to come in. Since this would probably be several hours, it was clear that this wasn't Quinn's or Jen's favorite idea. We were all hot, tired and thirsty.

The third option entailed dragging the 250 pound dinghy, motor, and fuel across 100 yards of that wet talcum-fine white sand. I mentioned that we could sit and wait for the tide, but apparently Jen and Quinn felt that I was simply making a poor joke and waited for me to start hauling the dinghy to the water. Oh, and they took pictures of course.

I did manage to float the dinghy without damaging anything important, (the dinghy made it afloat unscathed as well). We arrived back on Mirasol and I quickly availed myself of our stores of gin, tonic and lime.

Our third day was more leisurely. We hiked back up to the blow holes on Boo-Boo peak. This time we arrived near high tide and they were blowing strongly. We also climbed up to the peak and updated our driftwood marker with the year 2011. Boo-Boo peak get's its name from the sound of the blow holes when there is a strong on-shore swell at high tide. The cay is rumored to be haunted by a shipwreck castaway and some attribute the noise to his ghost, others to the blow holes. I'll reserve judgment as I haven't been to the peak at night and I imagine it's pretty spooky on a full moon.

We hope to come back to Warderick Wells one more time in 2012 as we make our was back to the US. It is a fun place to visit.

Valentine's Day at Shroud Cay

As expected, the cold front arrived a day early and we were happy with our decision to shift our Exuma landfall to Shroud Cay. Shroud gave us less protection than we had hoped, but it was better than we expected Highborne to be in N-NE winds. The cold front stalled on top of the Bahamas, giving us lots of rain and 20-25 knot winds for a couple of days. Mirasol was pretty salty from the last couple of passages so the heavy rains were welcome.

After two days of hanging out on the boat we were ready for a trip ashore when the weather broke on Valentine's Day. We climbed on the dinghy and motored around exploring the tiny cays that surround Shroud Cay. Quinn had his first try at driving, and did very well. By the time I had to take over as we approached land he was comfortable enough with it to be screwing around with the throttle, pestering Jen and making me happy I had the kill cord strapped around my wrist.

We beached on Shroud Cay and followed a trail for a short hike. We found a natural fresh water well that really surprised me. It was 12 feet in diameter and full of fresh water - not brackish at all. This was very surprising to me since Shroud Cay is made of porous limestone and is no more than 10 feet above sea level. There were small fish swimming in the well, and Quinn asked how they got there. Good question... how did fresh water fish show up in a well hundreds of miles from any sizable fresh water habitat? I'm stumped.

We found a tidal creek that wound its way through the mangroves across the north end of the cay all the way to Exuma Sound. We followed it in our dinghy, motoring and rowing as required. On reaching the Exuma Sound I had to jump out and pull Jen and Quinn in the dink across the shallows where we beached it and tied off to a very small mangrove tree along the shore.

Crossing the barrier dunes, we found a beautiful deserted beach on the Exuma Sound where we relaxed for a while while Quinn played in the surf. We named it Valentine's Day Beach.

Once back on Mirasol Jen started on a batch of bread while Quinn swam off the transom.

On to the Exumas

Yesterday afternoon we arrived in the Exumas after a wonderful 33 hour sail from Bimini. We left Bimini at dawn and motored south straight into 15 knots of wind. The waves were steep and right on the nose, but fortunately this was just for a few miles as we made our way to Gun Cay where we would turn East onto the shallow waters of the Great Bahamas Bank.

Once on the shallow smooth waters of the Great Bahamas Bank, we had wind on our beam. We shut off the motors and blew across the banks at 7-8.5 knots. It was a fantastic sailing day. With only 3 to 15 feet of water under our keel, I kept a close eye out for coral heads, but never had to change course to avoid them. We were following a route from the Explorer Chart Book and this is well traveled route we found it to be carefully plotted to avoid the hazards. I saw many coral heads on the banks, but all passed safely to either side of us.

I was very pleased with Mirasol’s performance. Even loaded down with every cabinet stuffed to overflowing with provisions and gear, we were able to overtake a monohull with a 10 mile lead and keep ahead of a larger catamaran following behind, although he would have overtaken us if he had a few more hours.

At sunset, we left the 6 to 20 foot water of the banks and entered the Tongue of the Ocean which is the deep water between the Great Bahamas Banks and New Providence. The drop-off is sudden – our depth finder which has a range of more than 350 feet and measures every second, lost the bottom with the last reading being 24 feet. A glance at the chart we were suddenly in 2600 feet of water, and would soon be in water over a mile deep. The topology of the Bahamian waters is simply amazing.

Over night, we sailed most of the way across the Tongue of the Ocean. The sky was clear and the moon was out so it was a bright passage. The wind settled down to about 8 knots, and we were fighting a 1.5 knot current so our progress was a modest 4.5 knots through the water and 3 knots over ground. It worked out just right, though as we arrived off of Paradise Island, New Providence just before dawn and would need daylight to pick our way onto the Yellow Banks just past New Providence.

As we approached New Providence, we could see the lights of the massive Atlantis Resort and other hotels on Paradise Island, and kept an eye out for the many passing cargo and cruise ships. At first light we picked our way through the scattered Cays and coral heads that guard the north east corner of New Providence and turned south onto the Yellow Banks. The Yellow Banks, like the Great Bahamas Bank is a huge expanse of very shallow water, generally less than 20 feet deep that runs the entire western length of the Exumas.

By mid afternoon on Friday we made Highborne Cay in the Exumas, which was where we had planned to anchor for the night. However, as we approached we learned that the cold front we expected to arrive the following evening had sped up and was now expected that night. The anchorage at Highborne Cay didn’t offer much protection from a strong North wind, so we changed plans and headed a couple hours further south to Shroud Cay.

The Shroud Cay anchorage is gorgeous, dotted with tiny cays surrounding Shroud Cay on the East and the turquoise waters of the Yellow Banks on the West. At Quinn’s suggestion, we toasted our arrival in the Exumas and then went about the business of squaring away Mirasol after a passage. By sunset the three of us were lounging on the bow, very happy to be back.

Exploring Bimini

We spent four days and five nights in Bimini at the Blue Water Marina while we waited for weather for our hop to the Exumas. We spent the time exploring Alice Town, building sand forts on the beach, fishing off the boat and a little minor boat maintenance here and there.

We had arrived on the Saturday before Super Bowl Sunday and Jen was happy to find that the owners of The Big Game Club marina were big Packers fans and were hosting a Super Bowl BBQ. Late Sunday afternoon we headed for the Big Game Club, both Jen and Quinn sporting their Packer gear. Since the Bears didn’t make it, I settled for cheering for the Packers, but refused to wear any Packers gear. The waitress at the door harassed me a bit for being a Bears fan, but let me in anyway. The BBQ was fantastic. Jen went for the chicken, Quinn for the ribs and I for the jerked pork loin. Delicious! Bahamians know how to throw a BBQ! Since the Packers won the big game, we celebrated with a big slice of chocolate cake, probably the last desert of that type we’ll find for a few months.

Monday Jen went searching for sea glass while Quinn and I built a huge sand fortress, complete with an outer wall, a moat, and a secret escape tunnel in the back. It has been many months since Quinn’s been on a beach like this and he put it to good use!

Alice Town was a pleasant place to visit, with very friendly locals. Quinn made several friends, including Craig, the BBQ master & bartender at the Big Game Club. The town is well kept and painted bright pinks, blues, and yellows. I was sorry to find that the Complete Angler Hotel where Hemmingway spent a lot of time had burnt down in 2007. Maybe I’ll read Old Man and the Sea again soon.