The next part of the Exuma chain is the protected Exuma Land and Sea Park. It is a no take, no kill zone where visitors can experience untouched reefs and a large variety of tropical fish. And the largest lobster you will see!! We went somewhat quickly through the remainder of the Exuma chain since we have experienced a number of times. We stopped at each of our favorite islands and spent a day snorkeling and swimming the beaches and then moved on.
First stop: Warderick Wells. This is the park headquarters island and has lots of great snorkeling sights as well as protected anchorages. One of my favorite snorkeling sights (a drift dive on the East side of the island) is here so this was a must stop for us. We waited until the tide was slack and then started our snorkeling adventure.
We were not disappointed - large parrotfish and grouper were everywhere. Beautiful, colorful coral and huge lobster - just leering at you from safely in the holes. Since this is a protected park, these lobsters have grown very large since there is no one hunting them. And they are brave, sometimes just walking about on the bottom, taunting the hungry snorkelers who come by. We also saw a couple of nurse sharks and some stingrays floating by us. It was a great day and by the time we headed back to the boat we were exhausted from fighting the current, our lips were cracked from all the salt water and we had permanently etched outlines of our goggles on our faces. But we were happy!
From Warderick we headed straight to Hawksbill Cay, our favorite stop on all of the Exumas. If you have read the blog before you have heard us talk about this little gem hidden in amongst all the more popular cruising stops. Unfortunately, when we got there, there was another boat in our serene anchorage! A very large yacht....taking up most of the small anchorage there. Of course these large boats don't mean lots of people and as it turned out, other than the 6 crew members we spotted there were only two people on the boat. So, even though we had to witness the "eyesore" of this mega-yacht in our anchorage, we still had the beach to ourselves.
Look how tiny our boat looks!
From Hawksbill, we made the short hour long sail up to Shroud Cay. We had never stopped here and had heard great things so were eager to try it out. We anchored in amongst the mooring balls and dinghied up to the Northern part of the island where there was a trail through the mangroves over to the East beach. We dinghied slowly through the mangroves, realizing that this island was similar to Conception, which we had visited only a few weeks before. Beautiful, pristine mangrove waters flowed over to an even more pristine ocean beach....all to ourselves! Unfortunately, as soon as we got to the beach side, we saw a large black cloud quickly approaching us and realized we had better get back to the boat before the squall caught up to us!
Brad enjoying the beach before the looming squall hits us
The mangrove dinghy path:
We made it back to the boat minutes before the squall, which only lasted for a half hour. It was a nice boat washdown and then we were free to enjoy the island for the remainder of the evening.
Tomorrow we leave the Sea Park and head to Normans Cay to check out the construction we have heard is going on...a new marina in the works?!
