Cambridge Cay

I get up at 6:30 AM and listen to Chris Parker weather forecast on the SSB radio. Then after breakfast I run our sign up to Boo Boo Hill and leave it next to “Sea Vu Plays” sign. 

Manana in the background, sign in the foreground

We then head to the office and buy more ice and Linda gets a very nice book on Reef fish. We meet Lisa and Craig “Second Spree” another boat from New Bern and they of course know our good friends Bill and Sandy “Hot Chocolate” whom we sailed with two years ago and skied with last winter. They also know Mark and Karen “Sea Vu Play”. We just keep running into sailors from New Bern North Carolina. New Bern attracts retired sailors.

We head to Cambridge. We sail down the east side of the Exumas on a moderate west wind to Cambridge. “Second Spree” came in a little later from the banks side. We all head up to “The Aquarium” two miles to the north, a fabulous snorkeling spot that has dinghy moorings.

 

Linda and Lisa

What Lies Beneath

 Craig and Lisa invite us over to their boat for Happy Hour.

Warderick Wells Day 2

In the morning we hiked to Boo Boo Hill, which has a commanded view of that area and anchorage. On the top of the hill many sailors leave driftwood with their boat names and date visit. 

Mooring field at Warderick Well from Boo Boo Hill

We did not do so last time, but I find and blank piece of wood and decide to do a little wood working project with my Dremel tool back on the boat. Stopped by the deck at the head quarters and talked with a bunch of sailors, a few we have run into previously, back in Florida.

After lunch we zip down to the south end of the Warderick Wells to Hog Cay and find another excellent snorkeling site “Pieces of Eight” reef, Queen Angels (Linda’s favorite), Stingrays, turtles and lots of different fish.

Linda is happy, we have already done more snorkeling than we had on our whole last trip, which is pretty good considering our first time snorkeling was only about two weeks ago. Love that new outboard, our best new snorkeling tool. Visited with “Greenwood”, owners are from Minnesota and have this boat in Florida for the winter and another home in Minnesota for the summer. We head back to the boat for more rum and cokes (love having ice) and I work on my woodworking sign project.

That evening the Catamaran, next to us have their friends over and are quite loud until around 10:00PM and then they run their generator until 11:00PM. They being French-Canadians from Montreal we feel like we are back on Lake Champlain with the same obnoxious city folks.

Warderick Wells

Via the dinghy we explored Hawksbill and left late morning for Warderick Wells, Exuma Park Headquarters.

Hawksbill Cay anchorage

Calm morning at Hawksbill Cay

Water and sky merge

We picked up our mooring around 2:30PM, checked and immediately headed to some small islands to the north to snorkel. The last two days have been unusually calm and this was a good opportunity to snorkel a couple places that are often to rough. We went to Kelly's reef which had a nice mix of white sand and coral which made for good light this late in the day.

Putting on fins

Snorkeling from the beach

There is a little secluded beach which we could snorkel from. As with many reefs there was the resident Barracuda who followed us around for a while.  It is very nice having the 15hp Yamaha outboard for snorkeling, we can zip around and checkout may sights in a fraction of the time that our 6hp will do.

Our new best snorkeling device in action, Go Yamaha !

We head back to the boat and shower off on the stern and have rum and cokes, with ice. The Park headquarters finally got their ice machine fixed. Was not functioning the last time we were here.

Shroud Day 2

Slept in and had a late breakfast. Normally I edit this blog on a PC and unload from there via WIFI. 

Flying iPhone

Well, here is the Exuma Park there is no WIFI and no cell towers within the park. I can get a get a data connection to a cell tower to the north if I hoist our iPhone up the mast so it is high enough to make a connection. Then I climb the mast with my laptop in hand and hanging from a halyard and I type out this blog -NOT.

Actually, the Bluetooth on the iPhone has a range of 40 feet or so and communicates to other Bluetooth devices down in the comfort of the boat. Unfortunately, now that our PC's have Windows 10 they will not tether to the via the USB cable to the iPhone or via Bluetooth. Windows XP and Windows 8 worked fine on our trip two years ago. So my only recourse is to use the iPad to write and upload, but I can not find away to upload pictures, so I will add them later.

We leave for at 3:30PM for a short sail to the next Hawksbill Cay and pick up a mooring at 5:00PM, Hard day of sailing.

Camp Driftwood

Ah leap year ! We deserve this bonus day after loosing over three weeks in Nassau. Nice not having to go anywhere. We have canolope for breakfast, should of waited a few more days, wasn’t quite ripe enough, but the price was right.

Today we do have one important goal, to spend the afternoon at Camp Driftwood. There is a mangrove lined creek on the north side of Shroud that meanders east to the ocean side of the island. There is a gorgeous beach we plan on visiting for a while. We pack up lunch, the beach umbrella (something we wish we had the first trip, beautiful beaches, but never much shade), towels and books. Finally and nice warm day at the beach after six weeks in the Bahamas.  I hiked to the top of the hill “Camp Driftwood”.  Fabulous views of the whole island.

"Life is a Beach"

This was a lookout point for the DEA back in the 80’s when they were keep tabs on that Carlos guy, the Colombian Drug runner that had taken over Norman’s just to the north.

Camp Driftwood, our favorite beach

Normans

We sleep in and have a leisurely breakfast and one by one all the boats leave the channel.  The winds pick up from the east and we have a pretty good chop.  We decide to head south to Shroud where will have good protection from the wind and waves from the east. We have a quick one hour sail to Shroud and pick up a mooring now that we are in the Exhumas Land and Sea Park. Much calmer here with open views to the west.

Kind of interesting seeing this barge coming at us. They are quarrying limestone from a smaller Cay and moving it to Normans for development of the runway and marina.  He came close by and asked us to move.

Free at last from Nassau !

Up at 6AM and working on getting the boat ready to leave. Took a load of vegetables to Heather and Gary “Maewyn”, still on the hard at Brown’s, but launching this morning. We pick up some other board oil and transmission fluid and make on last stop at Fresh Market.  The bastard’s ! They have Ben & Jerry's ice cream on sale again. We have to get a pint of New York Super Fudge Chunk, I guess that will be our lunch.  Back on the boat I find a space on the side of our freezer that will freeze meat, I stick the pint there hoping it will still be good after dinner.

Last visit to Starbucks for internet and coffee

We pay up our bill and leave the dock at 10:30AM.  Nice day with light winds so we motor-sail.

Bye Nassau

We get to Norman’s around 5:30.  There are about 12 boats anchored in the channel. There has been a lot of development on Norman since our last visit.  The runway has been extended to a mile long. A pond on the south end of the island has been dredged and they are soon to finish cutting a channel to the open water and build a protected “Keyhole” Marina.  Large piles of sand and limestone are visible miles away.  Hopefully they will disappear at some point. There is a barge quarrying limestone from another small Cay next to Normans and moving it over to Normans.

C46 drug running plane

The C46 aircraft  from the drug running days is still sticking out of the water.  It crashed landed in the lagoon while trying to land on the runway. Interestingly, it crashed with a load of grass. Not Marijuana, grass, real grass, sod to be specific. Carlos (something or other, isn’t every drug runner from Columbia named Carlos !) was looking to sod his lawn and had it flown in.
Carlos was eventually arrested and was extradited to the US and tried in Los Angeles.  Walter Cronkite, a sailor who frequented Normans, even testified at the trial, since he was threatened at gun point to leave the harbor.

A nice evening on the boat at anchor, finally.  The channel at Norman’s has a strong current and the sand bottom has good holding, but that does not keep the boats from moving all over with the current changes.

Oh and the ice cream for desert !  It was becoming Ben and Jerry’s soft serve. Still very good a much better than the chocolate milk shake it would of been by morning.