We’re three days into April and there is no sign yet of gentle spring weather down here. In fact, it’s going to get a lot worse before there is any hope of calm seas and light breezes…
We spent Easter weekend in the Exuma Land and Sea Park at Warderick Wells. It is a land and sea life refuge so it is teeming with lots of sea life on beautiful coral reefs, beaches full of beautiful shells, banana twits that are so tame they will land on your hand, just to name a few what constitutes abundant life down here! There are lots of trails to walk which change from fine sugar sand to the strange, lava-like limestone that looks and feels more like walking on rusted iron. The limestone islands of the Exuma cays have been created through a build-up of calcium carbonate from the rise and fall of sea levels, along with wind and rain. Over thousand of years these conditions have eroded the limestone into pits that can be quite large and deep.
The park ranger Andrew and his partner Jennifer hosted a wonderful Easter dinner at midday on Sunday, and one of the visiting boaters held a sunrise service on Booboo Hill, the highest place on the island. It is not a high summit, but the walk still has its challenges due to the nature of the limestone crags.
About 40 people went to the Easter dinner held in the park ranger’s lovely house that has stunning views of both the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Bahamas Bank.
There are other islands in the Exuma Park, and on Monday we sailed north to Shroud Cay where I have now seen my first Tropical Long Birds! They are stunning! I hurled myself all over a bouncing Pandora to try to capture them on film! They make a wonderful squeaking call that I have enjoyed hearing! In fact, I tend to hear them before I can see them!
Shroud Cay is known for its mangrove swamps, and at high tide we took the dink through the maze of mangroves and eventually made it out to the ocean side of the island where we walked along a 2 mile deserted beach. This is the stuff of daydreams…
But back to the weather… weather is the defining force of our trip down here. According to more seasoned sailors who have spent many winters down here, this has been the most challenging winter in about a decade. There are almost no harbors that offer 360-degree protection in quickly changing weather, so each day sailors must gather what information they can and try to pick a destination that offers the most protection. There is a big storm coming Friday that will give us sustained winds of 50 knots with gusts going to around 70 knots. Yikes!
We’ve got our plan in place and hopefully we’ll be snug and safe in Highbourne Cay. The frosting on the cake (for me) is that there is an excellent restaurant there, so at least I’ll be dining in style during the blow.
There is internet at Highborne, so I’m looking forward to catching up on blogs I love to visit and checking on what friends are posting on Facebook, and making phone calls! And I will make my travel plans for heading home….37 days to go!
You can track our location here.
