Today, we decided to make the move to Cambridge Cay, part of the Exuma Land and Sea Park. The main island is called Little Bell’s Cay. This was not very far from Big Major, a little northward in the chain. It is near a nice big cut , Conch Cut, in case we want to head to Eleuthera later in the week.
There are lots of attractions in the area, snorkeling, beaches, and hiking. The island is uninhabited and the anchorage protected. It is a little difficult to get to, needing close to high tide to get in. David was ready to try.
We had a nice sail with our genoa on the way and reached the entrance close to high tide. As we approached, the boat in front of us turned around. We spoke to him on the radio and he felt like the anchorage was crowded and that all the mooring balls were taken. We continued on to have a look. There were some 7.5 foot spots on the way in but we did not have any trouble.
We lucked out. A prize mooring was available when we entered and we picked it up easily. We were off two lovely beaches and counted six beaches that we could see. The water was deep and there was not much current closer to shore where we were. It was one of the most beautiful places we had been.
We set out to explore. While we were readying, a huge something jumped out of the water. David saw the jump, I saw the huge splash. It looked like a ray. Amazing.
There was a large hill on the other side of the island called Bell’s Rock. We decided to hike a trail across and have a look. The tide was still high so we could not cross to it but I realized I would not be climbing that one.
We opted instead for the ridge trail. It had some great views. We swam from the beach when we got back and decided to try some snorkeling There were three reefs right in the anchorage area. We tried the deeper one near our boat but there was a lot of current.
We opted for a snorkel around some small islands, Gemma’s islets. These two little islands had some beautiful reef life especially on their northern ends. We parked the dinghy on a sand bar beyond the islands. Conch were everywhere on the grassy part of the bar. The sand topography was amazing with a shallow bar next to a deep channel and then the small islands.
We saw fish and coral and when I was swimming back to the dinghy, a huge eagle ray came by. I saw him twice. Unfortunately, I did not have the camera. He was not the brown spotted version we saw in the Abacos but the same shape with a rounded body and head. This was likely the source of the breach we had seen earlier.
We ended the day going to another beach. We named it blue hole beach because after crossing a shallow bar, there was a deep hole that extended almost up to the beach. We walked out on the bar where hundreds of little conch were in the shallows. We swam in the deep hole. Amazing place.