January 27, 2009 “EXUMA LAND & SEA PARK” AT WARDERICK WELLS CAY

PICS
• Wooden fish offering on Boo Boo Hill
• Iguana greeting on Leaf Cay, Exumas
• Exuma Land & Sea Park mooring field . . . we’re next to last out there
• Boo Boo Hill . . . check out Summer Breeze in background

“EXUMA LAND & SEA PARK” AT WARDERICK WELLS CAY

Three nights in Nassau at the Nassau Yacht Haven and we’re stocked up, out of money, and making a run for it southward again for the Exumas. The northern end of the Exuma chain is about 40 miles south of Nassau, New Providence. They are a chain of 365 mostly uninhabited islands which runs for approximately 90 miles southeastward. Only about 3700 folks live in the Exumas, and most of them live in THE town of Georgetown on the far southern tip. Nassau is great to leave because it kinda hits you pretty heavy with culture shock, seeing cars, big buildings, and hearing the city noises, and such.

We made our 40 mile run to Exumas on a Sunday morning, arriving at the dreaded “Yellow Banks” portion of the trip around noon, at low tide. No big deal . . . the Yellow Banks are simply a 5 mile stretch in the middle of the route where the charts say “you’re on your own for the next hour, dude, there are way too many shallow coral heads out here to even put on a map, so we suggest you stand your wife up on the bow and tell her to keep her eyes open.” That’s why you should really try to hit this area around noon also, while the sun is directly overhead; it helps the visibility. This is our third time over this area, so it wasn’t our first rodeo. I wish I could have taken a photo of Nancy up on the bow pointing this way and that, but I was too busy watching myself. You’re receiving this blog, so obviously we didn’t hit a reef . . . again.

We were anchored off of Highborne Cay near the top of the Exumas by mid-afternoon for the night. The next morning, with 21 other sailboats anchored around us, we were the first to slip out at dawn with Warderick Wells Cay, the headquarters of the Exuma Land & Sea Park, as our destination, 31 miles south. The wind was a comfortable 15 knots to start, so we put up a double-reefed main and the genoa. No engine today; we were clicking along at 5 knots in no hurry. At 9 o’clock we talked to Exuma Park and confirmed a mooring ball in the main North Mooring Field, just off the Park Office. Awesome! Great protection and drop-dead gorgeous! By 10 o’clock the wind was starting to get kinda spunky; it was a steady 20 knots with higher gusts, but the seas were still mellow since we were now in the lee of the Exuma chain. The last couple of hours of the trip we were smokin’! I took over from “Otto”, our autohelm; he was having trouble handling it. For two hours we were making 6-7.4 knots, which is essentially flying in our sailboat. The hull speed specification is only 7.2 knots, so we were obviously getting some current help also. This was fun sailing; really fun considering all of the upwind motoring we’ve had to do heading east from coastal Florida. By 2 o’clock we were securely moored on our little ball in the narrow channel at Exuma Park with 19 other sailboats, watching the sun go down and listening to the wind pick up to 30-35 knots. Whew! It’s nice to be tucked away. Check out the photos of this little cul-de-sac arc; 10 feet off the rear of your boat it’s one foot deep.

The iguanas on nearby Leaf Cay are up by Highborne Cay where we spent of first Exuma night at anchor. It’s neat. They’re actually rather accustomed to being fed by some tourist speed boats that zip over from Nassau daily, so they come out of the woods onto the sand beach when you land. They are not bashful.

I also included pics from Boo Boo Hill on Warderick Wells Cay near the Exuma Park Office looking down on our mooring field. Boo Boo Hill is a major high point down here where it is the custom of sailors to bring up a piece of driftwood offering and place it on top of the hill as a token of thanks for safe passage. You can see our little “Summer Breeze” fishy, with our boat in the background.
We’ll be here at Exuma Park until another norther passes this coming weekend. If you guys don’t stop sending all this cold weather down from the States, we may just continue heading south.