Left at dawn . Wind very light and from the south so it is a motoring day. We would like to get a little further south and see the Exuma Land and Sea Park. There are so many places to see there. Shroud Cay looks very interesting but maybe shallow for us. Warderick Wells is the headquarters of the land and sea park so a good place to start. There are several mooring fields there and we called yesterday to reserve a mooring for today.
It took us about 5 hours to motor here. We loved naming the islands that we passed. They have such fun names sometimes: Elbow Cay, Tea Table Cay, Cistern Cay, Little Cistern Cay, Little Bitty Cistern Cay, We timed the journey to be within 2 hours either side of high tide so we would have plenty of room to come in the channel. We went to the Emerald Rock mooring field and picked up number 13. It was just off one of several lovely beaches in the harbor.
We decided to dinghy to a beach and then walk on the trail to the headquarters to check in. We saw a trail on a map from Tabebuia beach that wrapped around toward the headquarters and left the dinghy on the beach. We found a trail but we missed the turn to the trail going to the office and crossed the island. It was lovely on the sea side and we thought we were following a trail but really we were just walking along the ocean side of the island. It was lava rock with succulent vegetation hanging on to the rock. Once we got to a certain elevation we could see better. We were only halfway to our destination and it was approaching 3 o’clock with the park office closing at 4. We decided to walk back to our beach and go by water.
On the way back, we found Shady Tree Trail which was barely visible in parts and very shady through the palms. Often I would go by a palm frond and there seemed to be more of a rustle than just from the branch I moved. I think some creatures may have been scurrying out of my way but I never saw any. There are certainly iguanas in the area and a small endangered rodent called a Hutia.
We made it back to the beach and dinghied to the headquarters which is a wooden dock structure with a dinghy dock. It was low tide and we had to climb a ladder up from our dinghy. We met some cruisers from the catamaran Persistence. They have done this trip for several seasons. From the Headquarters, we could see the north mooring field which is quite spectacular. It is a semicircle with a sand bar in the middle. All around are rocks and beaches.
We returned to the boat and raised Fat Tuesday in anticipation of some increased wind from the South tonight.
