Exuma Land and Sea Park

Exuma Land and Sea Park - March 9 to 25, 2010

Mooring balls in the Exuma Land and Sea Park are available on a first come, first served basis. Anchoring is allowed outside of the mooring fields, unless otherwise posted, but it can be difficult to find a spot with adequate protection from the wind, waves and currents which can come at you from different directions at the same time and make it feel like you are in a giant washing machine. In the three mooring fields near the park headquarters you can ask to be put on a waiting list one day in advance by contacting Darcy by VHF radio. As a full time volunteer Darcy does an amazing job coordinating the requests from boats jostling for a chance at the choice spots. Not all patches of that absolutely beautiful water are equal and she has to match the boats to the depth of the water and the available swing room.

Some boats will fit better than others

When we crossed Exuma Sound from Powell Point on Eleuthra we expected that there would be a wait to get into the park so we set a course to Norman’s Cay which would then be a close hop for us when a spot became available. When we were close enough to contact Darcy by radio we were surprised to learn that she had a mooring ball for us. We made a sharp left turn towards the south mooring field between Warderick Wells Cay and Hog’s Cay. We also put our name on the wish list to be moved to the north mooring field near the park headquarters. For several years Tom has had a picture of the north mooring field as the background on his laptop and he really wanted to spend some time there. It only took a few days for an opening to come up.

Exuma Park, north mooring field

It was soon obvious that we were in a protected wildlife habitat. Just off our stern we had a school of yellow jacks looking for hand outs and when we went out in the dinghy with our looky bucket (glass bottom pail) to drift over the rare live stromatolite reefs (They are only known to exist in a few locations in the Bahamas and in Shark Bay in Australia) or snorkel around the coral reefs we saw colorful fish, spotted eagle rays and a southern sting ray that did not seem to be concerned by our presence.

A spotted eagle ray off Polar Pacer’s bow

After a beach party the hutias (rodents about the size of a Canadian muskrat but with a shorter tail) hover in the nearby bushes waiting to gather up any crumbs left behind. They are doing a good job cleaning up after the tourists.

Hutias hoover the sand after the party’s over

There is a feeding station at the park office for banana quits. They love white sugar.

Warderick Wells Cay is crisscrossed with rugged walking trails that take you from beach to beach and up to the top of Boo Boo hill where the view is amazing and boaters leave signs with their boat name as an offering to the ghosts that frequent the island and gave the hill its name.

The marked trail to Boo Boo Hill

Polar Pacer was here

Signs of those who came before us

Causeway Trail

We saw a couple of these guys swimming at the causeway and were told that this kind of ray is called a skate.

New mangrove shoots taking over the beach. They will provide habitat for small fish.

The park relies heavily on volunteers for making improvements to the facilities and Tom decided to offer his services. When they heard that he was able to make furniture they immediately came up with a list of things they needed for the houseboat, The Owl, that had been donated to the park and would be used to accommodate researchers. After six days, a coffee table, two desks, a bench, a picnic table and a boat seat had been completed but they kept adding things to the list and wanted to know if we would stop again on our way back north. They even made a special trip to one of the other islands to pick up more wood.

Tom's latest workshop. What would WSIB have to say about the bare feet?

A new coffee table for The Owl

This sling bench really is comfortable. Tom did the woodwork, I did the sewing.

I celebrated my birthday on the beach with a bonfire and a wide selection of appetizers. We had several kinds of pizza, fresh veggies with smoked salmon and garlic mayo dips, cream cheese with red pepper jelly topping, hummus, freshly baked focaccia bread and many more inventive creations.

These are the new friends who sang happy birthday to me

Two apples, two onions, a few black bananas, some oranges and half a cabbage; after two weeks in the Exuma Land and Sea Park that’s all that was left of our fresh produce and one freezer was almost empty. Time to get creative with cans! There are no supplies or services available in the park. No food, no water, no fuel. Boaters are also required to take all of their garbage out with them and we had accumulated quite a bag full. It was time to go.

We left Warderick Wells with Sea Walk and made one last stop before we left the park. Osprey Cay (aka Sandy Cay) is one of several privately owned islands within the park boundary and is uninhabited except for conch, hermit crabs, curly tail lizards and some nesting osprey. The owner does not have a problem with boaters visiting the island as long as you let the park rangers know before you go. The island is about 100 yards across at high tide and consists of some rocky formations at one end, a few casuarina pines and scrubby mangroves and lots and lots of beach.

Osprey nest on Osprey Cay

When we arrived there were two small groups on shore who had come from the mega yachts in nearby Cambridge Cay but once they left we had the whole island to ourselves. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and with the shallow beach the water was warm enough to go swimming without wetsuits!

Beach fun

The beach is littered with live conch when the tide goes out.

Relevant Reading – Life on a Rock by Kate Albury

This book describes the experiences of a Bahamian couple who decided to leave their busy lives behind in the city of Nassau in the ‘90’s and move to the private island of Highbourne Cay which they had been hired to manage for the absentee American owner. For five years they were totally responsible for everything that happened on the island and the people who lived on it. This often put them in situations far beyond the comfort zone that most of us would recognize from dealing with dead bodies to being confronted with a boatload of Haitian refugees whose disabled vessel had to be abandoned. As we sailed from Eleuthra to the Exuma Land and Sea Park we picked up the weather broadcast from Highbourne Cay. This early morning transmission was just one of Kate’s many daily chores on the island. There are many lessons in self sufficiency to be learned from this recounting of her experiences. In her book Kate talks about a whale that was beached on Ship Channel Cay. It is possible that this skeleton at the park headquarters is that same whale.

Whale remains from 1995