Exuma Land and Sea Park- January 2-January 9, 2009

The Exuma Land and Sea Park- January 2- January 9, 2009

Sea Star’s first anchorage in the Exuma Cays was Allen’s Harbor, between Allen’s Cay and Leaf Cay (where the iguana feeding took place), off Highborne Cay. I covered that stop in my New Years travel log entry.

Leaving Allen’s Harbor Dan and I decided to head for the Exuma Land and Sea Park whose purpose is, “safe haven and replenishment area for wildlife native to the Bahamas and to educate the public in saving this beautiful environment for future generations.” The Park is 22 miles long and extends 4 nm out from either side of the 15 large islands and a few smaller ones, including approximately 176 acres of naturally kept area. The Park does not allow taking of any wildlife, including fish, conch, lobster, shells, crab, or corals, and is monitored by the warden and volunteers, patrolling the borders of the park daily, and extracting fines for poaching, so we are warned.

 Conveniently for our sailboat, the Land and Sea Park provides mooring balls for yachts of all sizes, and buoys at dive and snorkel spots for the encouraged exploration, and well marked trails for hiking. The L+S Park allows and encourages boaters to reserve a mooring one day ahead of arrival at the Warderick Wells Cay which fills quickly, by calling ahead to the warden’s wife, a patient, pleasant and knowledgeable woman, on VHF channel 09, which we did, planning to arrive at Warderick Wells on January 3. Within the Park there are no facilities such as one might find at a marina; no restaurants, no way to dispose of garbage or purchase necessities such as food or fuel, so a boater must plan accordingly.

Sea star anchored off  beautiful Shroud Cay after sailing the 18 or so nm from Allen’s, using our jib alone on the Bahama Banks. The first night we arrived in park territory was cloudy with a little rain, so we waited until morning to explore the extensive mangrove creek area of Shroud, using our dinghy at high tide. In the narrow, winding, shallow creek we observed a Whistling Duck and many fish under the dinghy as we slowly motored along to avoid grounding. The clarity of the water with some sea grasses or sand under us as we moved along, was astounding. You just could not tell the depth available, always thinking you were shallow, but usually the dinghy motor had plenty of room.

We travelled through the creek, until, at its dead end, a brilliant blue ocean beach on Exuma Sound came into view just over the sand rise. We walked the beach admiring the intense and varied blues and greens of the accessible and warm waters contrasted with the whiteness of the sand -trying to ignore the mounds of colored plastic bottles, jerry cans, fish nets, shoes, and other flotsam washed up onto the beach at high tide.

We arrived back at Sea Star by 11:00AM from our exploring so we would have time to continue on to Warderick Wells and take our reserved mooring by mid-afternoon. We had a leisurely three hour sail to the Park headquarters, contacted the warden’s wife again, reminded her of our length and draft, and were one of eleven yachts that had arrived or were continuing their stay in what is called the North Mooring Field. (some boats request or are sent to the South Field, and a few larger yachts moor off of a site called Emerald Rock.) All afternoon, one by one boats, power or sail arrived and the mooring fields filled completely. Out by Emerald Rock were two one hundred foot yachts with their fishing boat size dinghies and all the toys; motorized scooters for underwater, personal water craft, extra center console inflateables, wind sailboards- you name it- but they can’t use the motorized in the Park.

Each morning at exactly 8:00AM, the warden’s wife, Judy, reads the weather report based on information from NOAA about the Gulf Stream crossing from Florida, from Nassau, and from a Virtual Buoy from within the Park. The report was very complete and appreciated by all the boats for our safety and future planning.

Sea Star stayed in Warderick long enough to do what boaters’ do there for $20 a day; snorkel the reefs that were on the protected side of the banks, walk or hike the cay on mapped trails and visit and discuss travel, weather and plans for moving on with other boaters at the park always feeling secure on the solid and well kept mooring balls. Sea Star crew snorkeled Judy’s Reef, Long Island and other coral patches with Jamie on Windsong, who had arrived from Staniel Cay on that Saturday in a nasty squall, viewing multiple and varied fish life, rays, huge grouper, schools of Jacks, and other species I will have fun identifying from our new Reef Identification set of books purchased at the Park, as well as corals and plants in vivid, greens, purples and yellows; unbleached corals in obviously wonderful health.

We were there on a Saturday night and the weather had been settled, so the park provided a space on the beach (next to a sperm whale skeleton display) and a bonfire for a gathering for any who wished to get together. Soon many, ten or more, dinghies lined the sandy beach and cruisers appeared with their Happy Hour – Sun Downer provisions and something to share. This was a fun time to see what others had done for the day and meet new people. Weather is always a discussion issue for cruisers and always has to be on your mind. We were experiencing warm and settled weather, BUT when was the next cold front going to arrive?

We heard the next front might arrive by the next Wednesday, so we made the decision to move on to explore other parts of the park before that time. After one more day at Warderick, our next stop was at Cambridge Cays, about a four hour sail and motor over some tricky Bank coral head areas and where depth for the keel was an issue if we traveled at a low tide.

 We made it into the mooring field and when we had time to look around this area from which I write now, it is even lovelier than what we had seen before in the Park. It certainly makes us wish we were sharing it with friends and family as well as the straightforward and outgoing, welcoming and friendly cruising boaters in temporary residence. The snorkeling is exquisite and varied and just enough of a challenge to keep the adrenaline up when the denizens of the sea appear in the corner of your vision.

 One really exciting creature we saw was a Lion Fish; a beautiful creature, softly colored in grays and light pink having appendages extending in a circle from its middle area but a somewhat dangerous reef fish that has venomous spiny fins and is not native to the area, and so it is a problem on the reef. (see Lionfish http://www.seeker.com/poisonous-lionfish-may-invade-mediterranean-1873177497.html Caribbean to read about the problem- quite interesting) We were told the Park may trap these fish to study them by DNA testing. The barracuda (only two I saw) may be quite large and curious, but because the area is closed to fishing, the groupers and other game fish are growing to a large and heavy size and are great to see through the caverns in the rocks and coral. The Trigger Fish, Angels and colorful reef fish delight us with their scooting and chasing antics. Sorry, I still can’t send pictures as I have no internet service. Our pictures only show land or islands anyway, well, only one cool fish, a trunkfish, and a Peregrine Falcon we saw when hiking.

Exumas L+S Park