April 11, 2018 Exumas Land and Sea Park and Other Tales

April 11, 2018

Exumas Land and Sea Park

After visiting a few of the islands in the northern Exumas, we made our way into the area known as the Exuma Land and Sea Park. They claim to be the oldest protected marine park in the world. The park is managed by the Bahamas National Trust, which is a non-governmental non-profit organization. We met the new-ish administrator Joe, who is trying to update the management of the park and improve the facilities by increasing their available funding. One way they are doing this is by charging a fee for all boats which enter the park, whether they pick up a mooring ball or just anchor. This has miffed a few cruisers off, but the reality is that the park has been woefully underfunded and this should help with a lot of capital improvements (better visitor facilities, more mooring balls) and an increase in enforcement of the park rules. The park has a partnership with the Bahamian Defence Force to help enforce their resource protection and no fishing rules (think Coast Guard).

SHROUD CAY

We started our exploration of the park at Shroud Cay. Again, it is tempting to pronounce “CAY”, but is actually pronounced “KEY”. What a cool spot! We were joined here by our cruiser friends we met in Marathon; Andy and Sarah. As they once joked (but its true), once you find other cruisers in our age bracket without kids or pets, we tend to want to stick together when we can! We have certainly observd that we are an outlier as a demographic. I would say our age bracket (especially without kids) is maybe 5% or less of the people we meet. There also seem to be a lot of boats which travel with pets. This is not a negative observation, as we have made lots of friends of all ages and many have been generous in sharing their experiences and knowledge which far surpass ours! While there are certainly the people who are out here in retirement who came from Michigan and have zero boating experience, I am most amazed at the world traveller types who are in their 60’s and 70’s and who are out fishing and snorkeling every day more than we are! It gives me hope that maybe we can do this for a while yet. We knew there would be a varied demographic of people out doing this, but the eclectic mix of old and young, kids or no kids, rich or poor, from different countries, on vacation or cruising around the world, etc. is something that I am still digesting. The young families amaze me the most though I think..2 adults and 3 kids sometimes on a 35 ft. boat! I don’t know how they all keep their sanity or how the parents have time to drive, maintain, clean, and fix the boat; all while homeschooling kids from 5 years old to 17 years old plus keeping the crew fed and watered! I do enjoy the kids though! We had a great game of beach baseball with a super nice family we met who have the sweetest kids ever! Driftwood bat and a tennis ball…palm frond bases. That shit keeps you young right there! Speaking of the rich crowd down here, one thing we have been noticing and been told is that the Exumas are being taken over by big money in the form of more giant yachts everywhere and the marinas catering to them instead of small cruising boats. We have seen the most insane yachts with whole crews who come early to secluded beaches and set up the place like it was the Hilton with umbrellas, beach chairs, tables, coolers, jet skis, paddle boards and the whole deal. Then they ferry the people to the beach. Many of the privately owned islands within the Land and Sea park are being developed with luxury accomodations, giant yacht marinas, fancy bungalows and restaurants, or bought up by celebrities, therefore shunning exploration on these islands which were once more open to the public for use. Celia is obsessed with having at least one celebrity encounter while we are here…every sea plane or helicopter or fancy island hopper mini yacht is always greeted with “Hey Brad! Brad, over here! It’s us! Todd and Celia!” in hopes that Brad Pitt will invite us for a cocktail. So far, no luck. We are however, scheduled to stay in an exclusive fancy marina tomorrow with a hook up from an old high school era friend from back home who works on mega yachts. We might be out of class here while we try to do laundry and put soap on the boat for the first time in over a month! Alledgedly they are filming for the bachellorette their this week. I might have to fight off all the spurned horny bachelors and keep them away from my lady at the bar!

So…Shroud Cay! Shroud Cay is sliced through from west to east with several winding creeks through the mangroves that make up the center of this Cay. Most of the other islands we have seen so far are rocky and dry, so we were excited to see something new. We dinghied through the northernmost creek (the only one open to motorized craft) to a really great beach on the other side of the island. We saw sharks, turtles, rays, birds, and all kinds of wildlife. A new bird to me is the “tropic bird”. They nest here in the Exumas during March and April. They are a very cool bird to look at. A tropic bird is a medium-small bird, mostly white. What makes it fun is that it has a super long tail that you can see very well when they do their acrobatics and mating dance in the sky. Look up an image if you have never seen one!   This island also famous for “Camp Driftwood”. Before the area was popular, a hermit lived off shore here on his boat and built what would become known as Camp Driftwood on the highest hill on the island. He would hike up with pieces of driftwood and make all kinds of tables and benches and chairs out of them. This was sometime in the 60’s Apparently, it looked like a little Robinson Crusoe village until not too long ago. We did not see much left of it on our visit, but the hill does offer some amazing views! Apparently, this is also the hill that DEA agents used to spy on cocaine kingpin Carlos Lehder on his nearby island of Norman Cay which we had visited previously.

Celia has been experimenting in the galley and we were excited for “burger night” while we were at Shroud Cay. Celia made the most amazing dill hamburger rolls from scratch! She has tried a few bread recipes, and lets just say they have had varied results. These buns though were the best. Andy and Sarah were also doing burgers this night and delayed their dinner to see how Celia’s buns turned out, as they were out of bread products. They were awesome. I can’t tell you what an amazing job Celia has been doing in the galley. I don’t know how she comes up with all these delicious meals! Neither Todd or Boat Monkey is going hungry; although our provsions from the mother land are starting to dwindle noticibly! No more potato chips or granola bars or cookies! Potato chips are about $8/bag here locally…a bit beyond our provisioning budget. I will pass along that we have found high quality canned chicken breast to be surprisingly good! We knew we would go through our frozen meat supply as our freezer is tiny, so we supplemented with canned tuna, crab meat, smoked salmon, etc. and as an afterthought grabbed some canned chicken at Trader Joes. It’s actually good! We have done it in stir frys, chicken salad, on salads, you name it.

HAWKSBILL CAY

Next up to the south was Hawksbill Cay. We were excited because we had read in a guide that the snorkeling was great here. We went exploring the entire perimeter of the island on a perfect calm day on the Exuma Sound (open ocean) side of the island. We found lots of rocky bottom with some cool fish but very little in the way of live coral. It was a little dissapointing overall. This will not be on our list of places to come back to. One cool thing that happened here was that the crew of a mega yacht set up and launched a quite spectacular fireworks display for one of their guest’s birthday. It was very out of place (and against the rules) in this otherwise secluded and quiet anchorage inside the Land and Sea Park.

WARDERICK WELLS

Warderick Wells Cay is the Land and Sea Park’s Headquarters. Here are stationed a few permanent staff who are the wardens, rangers, and administrators for the park, plus a few members of the Bahamian Defence Force who rotate in every few weeks to patrol and help enforce the parks no-fishing rules. The famous north anchorage is a skinny, high current creek of water where they have moorings installed. We had read about but were still taken aback by how much current runs through the cuts between islands! It means that you really have to be aware of and time the tides to get through the cuts safely and to visit many of the best snorkeling sites. Try going to a spot you want to swim when the current rips and you may never be seen again! Anyway, to get into the mooring area you have to navigate a very narrow cut and work your way around the other boats moored there. One guy coming in almost crashed into us trying to weave through the boats as he underestimated the current!

Overall, this area is ripe for days of exploration. We found so many nooks, crannies, beaches, coves, ruins, and snorkel spots here. We could have stayed for many days, but we are anxious to keep moving since it is late in the cruising season and we are not yet sure where we will end up for hurricane season. There are miles of trails on Warderick Wells that are in various states of grooming and marking. Poisonwood was everywhere on and off the paths in the hammock areas. We were lucky that we noticed it early on so we could avoid it. We could only feel sorry for some family from Ohio that didnt know what the hell poisonwood is. and having to suffer a miserable poison ivy-like rash for the rest of their charter trip! We defintely missed the trail and got lost a few times, but in between we found some of the coolest beaches, views, ladders to nowhere, and other weird stuff. Most of the time we had the places to ourselves, as it seemed many of the cruisers stuck to the main beaches, or visited other areas via dinghy instead of the trails on land. They missed out on some coolest stuff! Boo Boo Hill, giant solution holes, fresh water wells, strange birds and lizards…Butterfly Beach all to ourselves, good times! We found a couple cool snorkeling spots; in fact there was a wrecked sailboat that burned down in the mooring field several years ago right under our boat! People kept buzzing us in their dinghys looking for it and snorkeling it. It definitely cut into the amount of time Boat Monkey could prance around naked on the boat! We had game night with our friends playing “mexican train” dominoes (dominoes are a huge past-time in the islands..games in general really).

Another amazing thing you read but can’t imagine till you see it is the color of the water in the Bahamas! EVERY SINGLE VARIATION AND HUE OF BLUE! There were stone cairns assembled everywhere for marking paths and landmarks or just for fun. Some of the view spots really showed off the variations of blue as the water went from shallow to over a thousand feet deep. Another fun thing (in the park especially) was the names of stuff…Missionary Bay…Ballast Cove…Powerful Beach…Bush-Basher Beach…Meteorite Beach…Jumbie’s Lair…just to name a few. I hope to visit Warderick Wells again.

CAMBRIDGE CAY

Our next and last stop in the Land and Sea Park was Cambridge Cay. This area was a highlight! Although privately owned, cruisers may still access a few of the best beaches on this island via designated trails that lead from beaches near the anchorage. The unique geology in this area is a big draw for visitors. One beach had a gigantic boulder with a door-sized hole/window in it just yards off the beach. Lots of other unique geologic structures are found nearby including a snorkel and dive site we visited nearby called the “Rocky Dundas”. Basically composed of two giant rocks,they have some of the most amazing sea caves I have ever seen. At slack low tide, you can swim into these huge caverns under the island, walk up and explore via the sunlight shining magically through holes in the roof of the cave! It was amazing. The Go-Pro pictures barely do it justice. There were two of these caves. Around these rock islands is a mini wall dive down to about 25 feet deep with some of the best coral we have seen so far. Lots of big fish and healthy coral structures. A few nice stands of elkhorn and pillar coral.

Another nearby snorkel we tried was off of O’Briens Cay where we checked out an area known as the “Sea Aquarium”. It was a really nice garden of mostly soft corals and a good variety of fish in shallow protected water. The chart showed a plane wreck in about 20 feet of water in the same bay, so we found that and snorkeled there too. It was a smaller 12 or so passenger plane and actually had some really nice high relief coral structures all around it. Unfortunately the current here made it a little more work than I wanted after my nooner rum and juice, so we called it a day.

I wish we could stay and explore more of this place as there are several more highly recommended snorkel spots nearby. However, we are running out of water and toilet paper, all of our clothes are salty and smelly, and both the boat and us need a real shower/bathing experience. I might even take Celia out to a nice fancy dinner! Until next time, toodles. “Hey Brad! Over here! It’s us, Todd and Celia!”

Don’t forget, you can use the link/screen at the bottom of this website to see exactly where we are in real time on the map via our Iridium/PredictWind satellite subscription. It does NOT work very well on a phone, but you can click on “map” or “satellite” in the top middle to view and zoom in and out on the spots we are visiting really well on a tablet or laptop. Thanks for checking in. We really miss all of our friends and family and it is weird being away from the Keys for so long! Much love from Todd and Celia in the Bahamas.

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