April 29 - Kind of rolly overnight. Swells come in from the ocean even though you wouldn’t think they would given that we’re in close to a lee shore. Apparently they swing around the Cay when they come in through the cut. It’s a nice morning and when two of the four boats in the inner harbor leave we go back in to investigate anchoring there. We drop the hook in about 11 feet of water in the middle of the cut at middle tide. There’s a ridge in the middle so we have more water as we swing to the West towards shore in the East winds. Not what we’re used to. It’s very pretty to be tucked in among the little islets and the water is the light turquoise color you’d expect in 10 ft. of water over sand. I’m nervous about the short scope we need to stay in place and the prediction of heavier winds over night. We launch the dingy and the new engine purrs nicely as we take a trip to Leaf Cay which is itsy bitsy and known for being overrun with certain kinds of iguanas which are only found in the Bahamas. They bring tourists from far and wide to feed them in "speedboats" so they’re "trained" to come out and greet you when you land on the little sandy beach in the middle of the Cay. We didn’t bring any food so they lose interest in us quickly, but now "we’ve seen the iguanas". We then take a dinghy ride around the rest of the anchorage and don our snorkel gear to see what we can see. There’s no life in the sandy-bottomed cut between the Cays, but there’s small coral and small fish along the shallow sides of the Cays. Nothing we haven’t seen thousands of times before, but the water is quite warm and the colors vibrant and it’s good to be snorkeling again.
April 30 - We wake up to a stiff E/SE wind and take off for either Warderick Wells (if they have a mooring for us), or for the anchorage at Shroud Cay if they don’t. We can sail well on the tack back into Exuma Bank, but we’re very close hauled on the next tack SE. Nonetheless we do sail until we’re forced to head back to the Islands from the Sound in a more easterly direction, so in comes the jenny and on goes the iron jenny. Warderick Wells broadcasts mooring assignments at 9:00 a.m on VHF, but we weren’t able to hear it due to our location and we weren’t able to reach them while sailing until less than 20 miles away, so it wasn’t until the middle of the day that we knew we had a mooring there and could know our final destination for the day. We’re beating into head seas but making steady progress as we proceed back in from the Bank and all is going well UNTIL (why is there seemingly always and "until"?) we seem to be right on the course I set and right on the course the plotter identifies ("magenta line") to enter the channel into Warderick Wells when a large clearly delineated sand bar stands smack in our path. All of a sudden the soundings on the plotter are far deeper than the soundings I’m experiencing as I approach the bar they continue to drop. Well, we’re right where we’re supposed to be it seems, so after three aborted efforts to pass over the bar (it is not far from low tide) I try a fourth and when we’re about two-thirds across we bump the bottom (uh oh) - I’m able to turn around and back track and now we know for sure that we’re not crossing that bar. I get on the radio to Warderick Wells for any advice they may have and the captain from a large Motor Yacht "Tippany" intervenes. He’s leaving Warderick Wells and he’s been tracking us on AIS and listening to my conversation with the Warderick Wells Park office and he tells me that I can go around the bank and enter the clearly visible deeper water on its easterly side and then be properly in the channel. It sounds easy, but it certainly wasn’t for us. Steve is tracking our position on the paper chart and he was as convinced as I was that we in the proper position when attempting to cross the bar. Anyway, once we around the bar we’re fine and we enter the harbor and pick up our mooring with no difficulty. The mooring field is very, very narrow with absolutely no water on either side and I’m coming within a few feet of many of the moored boats coming down the field, but I’ve gained a lot of confidence since leaving Maine and it’s not difficult as the current runs in the same direction as the mooring field. The harbor is absolutely gorgeous. It’s surrounded by solid land on some sides and a number of islets on others, with numerous sandy beaches, palms, etc., etc. The pictures I take cannot do it justice as my camera doesn’t have a sufficiently wide angle lens. I’ll get Kryss to try to do a panorama with her camera phone. Anyway, there’s a school of sizable fish hanging out around our ladder (probably yellow tail snapper, but I can’t tell for sure from the deck). Kryss goes for a swim and then I follow, only to come scurrying up the ladder as two sharks seem to be making a beeline for me when I put my head in the water to look around. Turns out there are a small school of them that I can see in that quarter when I’m back on deck. They’re small and brown and I learn later from some other cruisers who came by to chat that they’re sand sharks and harmless. I didn’t think they were big enough to be threatening even before I heard that, but it was comforting to hear it anyway.
Bottom line is we’re on a mooring and safe in an exquisite harbor and will stay for a few days to explore the area. No cell phone reception, no broadband reception. It’s about as remote as you can get, except for the fact that the Park Service headquarters is here.
May 1 - Bright sunny day with strong winds that bounce us around on the mooring we’re on. We seem to be on the most exposed one, but by the same token being out in the open gives us better ventilation when the winds lighted up and puts us close to one of the better snorkeling areas, in addition to the fact that changing moorings with the narrow channel and strong current here would be quite a pain. As the day goes on the winds lighten and "all’s right with the world", but for the fact that not only do we not have cell phone or broadband reception, but our satphone reception is marginal as well. We put the dinghy in the water, check in at the Park Office, join the Bahamas Trust and get two nights of our mooring fees covered for the membership fee, pick up a bunch of brochures on trails, habitat, snorkeling sites, etc. I take Jane and Steve to the beach and Kryss and I hang out. I’m pretty tired from the tough entry part of the trip the day before and I’m content to bury myself in the charts and plotter to see where else we can go and how we can do it with adequate water. Later in the day I take Kryss out to one of the snorkeling sites in the dinghy and we find that the dinghy ladder that I bought eons ago doesn’t work very well and that we’re going to have to find a better way to enter the dinghy from the water if we use it for diving or snorkeling. Wind dies at the end of the day and it’s idyllic. We go to the main beach to join a bunch of other cruisers for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres and go back to the boat as the sun is setting for dinner. All in all, a nice day.
May 2 - May 3 We’re hangin’ out in Warderick Wells reading, swimming, trying to find good snorkeling and generally "chillin". I find a way to use the dinghy ladder so as to be able to get in and out from deep water and buy the Exhumas "Explorer" Chartkit after finding that my plotter and the new Maptech Chart were not adequately accurate for safely entering Warderick Wells. I replot courses for Cambridge Cay and for Staniel Cay, we meet other cruisers for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres on the beach at 5:00 p.m. or so each evening and generally don’t do a great deal each day. Kryss and I did take one of the hiking trails across the Island to "Barefoot Beach" on the other side and found the terrain (think it’s heavily eroded limestone) very difficult and the hike not particularly interesting, so no more hikes for now.
May 4 - Still in Warderick Wells and staying until Tuesday as cold front is expected to blow through today with gusty winds and squalls. Generally cloudy and rain on and off so we hang out most of the day on the boat, but Kryss and I go for a swim at the beach by the Park Office and are invited aboard Paula Faye a large Carver motor yacht moored by the beach cove and chat with Sanford and Faye from Charleston, originally from Cleveland, when the heaviest rains come.
May 5 - Clouds have left and its sunny with the wind clocking, right now blowing from the N/NE and we’re finally in a real lee on our mooring for the first time since we came into Warderick Wells. Snorkled at Emerald Rock and in cut behind mooring field. Fish life is nothing that we haven’t seen before and generally not in the same quantities or sizes that we’ve seen in the VI’sor when diving, but the corals, particularly the soft corals are svibrant and quite pretty. Generally speaking the mooring field is absolutely beautiful, totally natural with only the Park office and Park personnel housing for buildings and the various sand bars that are exposed at low tide make it really nice, but as for the snorkeling, no great shakes.
May 6 - We leave just after low tide for Staniel Cay. Winds are moderate and we can motor sail the whole way. Distance is 21 nm and we get to Staniel around middle tide, which provides adequate water over spot on charts that suggests that there isn’t enough water for us. We fuel up and find our berth at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club, which is really nicely done and quite quaint. They have a whole school of nurse sharks that they feed and they congregate on and around some concrete steps leading into the water.
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