Warderick Wells to Rocky Dundas/Fowl Cay

Get cozy and grab a drink and a snack, because I’m covering a lot of water. I was going to take you all the way to George Town in this post, but that would have been way too long. Instead, I’m doing something I rarely do; I’m posting today and again on Wednesday to get you to George Town, which we will have already left by the time these two posts get you there. Still, it will keep you only about a week behind our actual location. Here we go…

In my last post we had just arrived at Warderick Wells, which is where the Exuma Cays Land & Sea Park headquarters are located. We had planned to stay only two nights, but we were boat bound our first full day there due to winds in the high 20s gusting to the low 30s with off and on rain all day, so we stayed one more night, which allowed us to walk ashore in a couple of places the next day, and also to snorkel Emerald Rock. The morning after the big winds, Dave and I hiked up the famous Boo Boo Hill and poked around for a bit. We did not contribute to the pile of boat names on drift wood at the peak because we are lame and forgot to make a sign <sigh>. Dave & I did some mediocre snorkeling at Emerald Rock after lunch. We’d had higher expectations of the snorkeling in the park, but conditions relegated us to just Emerald Rock. There were several very tiny patches of reef that together may have had a slightly larger footprint than Indigo Lady. There were a bunch of the usual suspects (fish) one expects on small, shallow reefs, but nothing as large as a barracuda, let alone a shark. I guess the really good snorkeling/diving was in the cuts between islands that we just couldn’t time correctly during our very short stay. After our dive, Dave, Mom and I dinghied down to Rendezvous Beach and took a short trial to poke around some very old, almost no longer existent plantation ruins before heading back to Lady for drinks and dinner. The snorkeling may not have met our expectations, but the views of and from Warderick Wells are amazing! It was a lovely setting. 

I enjoy the sound of water lapping against the hull and the feel of the gentle rock of the boat as I fall asleep. Our last night on the Warderick Wells mooring ball was not that. It was dizzying and loud. While we were playing cards before bed, we watched the anchor lights in the mooring field whiz past us one way and then the other as we swung like we were on a Tilt-A-Whirl. Those who remember that amusement park ride know what I’m talking about; the rest of you can google a video of it. I hope you don’t get motion sick. As we retired to bed, the wind and current were opposing each other and we kept coming up tight *in front of* the mooring ball with it banging between our hulls, then the lines would relax, and then repeat coming up tight. The banging of the ball between the hulls plus the sound of our bridle lines tensioning repeatedly was enhanced in our echo-chamber cabin. It was very noisy until the tide changed and I could finally get to sleep.

We left Warderick Wells to anchor between Soldier and Little Halls Pond Cays so we could snorkel what is called the “sea aquarium.” We really wanted my folks to be able to do this, which meant taking Lady over there because they can’t get back into dinghy from the water. The dive moorings are designed for dinghies and tour boats smaller than Lady. So we picked up a mooring and got my folks in the water while Dave stayed at the helm to keep tension off the mooring line and keep us off the nearby rocks. I kept watch on the mooring and my folks. The wind and current were opposing each other, which is tetchy enough, but suddenly one of them overpowered the other and our bow started being pushed toward the very nearby rocks. I struggled to drop the mooring ball from our stern and shouted to my folks to stay put. Thank goodness Dave has the lifetime of boating experience he does, because he managed to maneuver us such that only the last part of the starboard sugar scoop scraped a small point of rock. It left us with a 4-6” gash in the fiberglass outer layer of the cored hull, substantially above water line. It has been temporarily patched with flex seal and is awaiting a proper repair of glassing and gel coat which we’ll probably do when we have her hauled at the end of the season. We circled around and picked up my folks who had thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the fish and coral on their brief dip. We returned to our anchor spot and then Dave and I dinghied over for our turn snorkeling the “sea aquarium.” It really is a lovely spot with tons of fish and healthy coral. We got cold pretty quickly, though, so it was a pretty brief snorkel. We surmised later that we probably got chilled so quickly because we were both coming down from the adrenaline rush of saving Indigo Lady from total destruction!

On to something more pleasant…

We spent my birthday anchored at Fowl Cay, on the south side of Conch Cut, which is the southern boundary of the Land & Sea Park. The southernmost island in the park is called Rocky Dundas with caves one can snorkel into under the ledge at low tide, which we did at the low tide on the morning of my birthday. There were three other dinghies there, and the caves aren’t very big, so we enjoyed the coral and fish outside the entrances as we waited our turn. The caves were really cool! You just swim in, get your feet under you, stand up and gawk for a few minutes at the stalactites and stalagamites. There were two caves. The more southerly one we could actually get up onto a dry (at low tide) rock shelf to stand and look around stably. The northerly cave had more surge so we stood but struggled to keep our feet. It was pretty spectacular. 

After lunch all four of us dinghied to the small reef about a football field’s distance from Lady at the northwest corner of the anchorage. It was a pretty little reef with quite a bit of healthy coral and a bunch of fish, and it was out of the current. I even saw a small nurse shark and a large barracuda. We have a ladder we attach to dinghy’s stern to aid our getting back into dinghy from the water. We weren’t sure my folks would be able to use it, since there is very little room between it and the motor, and one still needs to stay balanced on the ladder while using one’s upper body to gently pull oneself over the transom. So we came prepared to tow them back to Lady with lines and a couple of floaties we keep onboard. Mom actually managed the ladder, but it was too tight a space for Dad, so we towed him back, which he enjoyed. Back aboard Lady, we enjoyed fruity rum drinks, a pasta dinner, courtesy of Mom, followed by cards and a chocolate banana bread I had made earlier. It was a great birthday!

The slide show below starts with Shroud Cay, which I mentioned briefly in my January 28th post, but since it’s part of the Exuma Cays Land & Sea Park, the pictures ended up here. The picture at the top of the post is a reef shark that greeted us when we arrived at Warderick Wells.

The next installment of our route to George Town will post this coming Wedenesday the 22^nd. 

Until then, enjoy the show below, stay safe and take care of each other!