The Exumas Land and Sea Park at Warderick Wells was the next stop in our journey. The resources I read described wonderful snorkeling, hiking, and other attractions such as a whale's skeleton on the beach. It was definitely on my "must do" list, and in fact, turned out to be the site of my favorite sighting in the Bahamas. People often ask where my favorite place has been during our Excellent Adventure, and I honestly can't answer that question because the places we've been are often not comparable and I love different things about each of them. I can now say, at least, I have a favorite experience.
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| Right Whale Skeleton on Whale Beach at Warderick Wells |
Warderick Wells was relatively close to our previous stop, Shroud Cay, and we decided to go ahead and move on April 26th, even though sailing was out of the question. We motored and checked in at the Park Office in the early afternoon, suiting up afterwards for our afternoon snorkel.
I was immediately captivated by the wildlife here in the park. Since the park is a preserve, no fishing or other collection of specimens of any kind is allowed within the perimeter, and the fish and wildlife were larger and more abundant than others places we had been.
The first new thing that I ran across was a hawksbill turtle. Although I had seen many turtles from the dinghy, I never saw one that appeared to be a hawksbill. The hawksbill's markings are absolutely gorgeous, and I was content to just float above, observe its peaceful movements and appreciate its beauty.
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| Hawksbill Turtle (Photo from seeturtle.org) |
After bobbing - lost in my reverie - for a few moments, I became aware that I was being hailed quite excitedly. I was reluctant to leave my turtle-friend, but was curious to see what had warranted a summons. Jan had told Steve there were eagle rays. Having never seen an eagle ray, I propelled myself to where Jan and Mark were. I was met by sheer magnificence: a pair of spotted eagle rays "flying" through the water.
The larger one was probably 8 foot wide, and was flanked by a smaller ray which was roughly half its size. The rays weren't frightened and swam serenely in the vicinity, allowing me to get a close look. The head of the spotted eagle ray is shaped like a bird's head, and the markings on its back looked as if they were hand-painted in gold on black velvet. The markings looked like some sort of ancient hieroglyphics and I felt as though I was seeing a robe of the ruler of an ancient African civilization. This majestic creature is at the very top of my list of favorites.
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Spotted Eagle Ray |
The next day, we snorkled a few different areas in the park but ended up going back to the place we had seen the eagle rays. It apparently is their hangout and we were graced with another sighting. Later in the afternoon, we took a hike to the top of Boo Boo Hill - both for the view and a potential cell phone signal.
The Exumas are definitely more remote than the Abacos but most of the time we had a cell signal. The Exumas Land and Sea Park was one of the exceptions. We didn't mind being off the grid for a few days in terms of internet and social contact, but it was a bit disconcerting not to have access to the weather predictions. We weren't able to find any weather reports on our VHF radio, but thankfully we have an AM/FM radio and were able to receive a forecast from the Nassau radio station.
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| Jan and Mark Atop Boo Boo Hill |
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| View from Boo Boo Hill at Warderick Wells |
The beach at Warderick Wells was considerable larger at low tide than at high, and on one of our morning walks we were able to see nature's imprints in the sculpted sand and various animal prints.
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| Morning at Warderick Wells Beach |
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| Critter Poking Out at Low Tide |
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| Ray-print at Low Tide, Warderick Wells |
Based on upcoming weather forecasts, we left the next morning for Staniel Cay, home to the famous Thunderball Grotto. We didn't want to miss it, but needed to get there and back to a more protected anchorage in time for the arrival of some heavy winds that were expected.
Thunderball Grotto is a cavern which can only be accessed at low tide, and is named after the 1965 James Bond movie, Thunderball, in which Sean Connery filmed a scene with a tiger shark. Thankfully, there were no tiger sharks there the day we visited! (We did have a nurse shark visit us while we were at Staniel Cay, though).
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Shark Hanging Out at Starry Night at Staniel Cay |
The cavern itself was cool, but the fish and other life there didn't live up to the expectations set forth in the literature. Of course, my standards are pretty high at this point!
I had also heard that there are swimming pigs in the Bahamas, but I thought they were confined to an island in the Abacos which we hadn't visited. As we were looking at the charts, we noticed that there was a "Bay of Pigs" at Staniel Ca and sure enough: swimming pigs! As a matter of fact, these are the ORIGINAL swimming pigs, according to the sign on the beach. 🐷
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Staniel Cay - Swimming Pigs in Background/Snorkeling Fiends in Foreground
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| Swimming Pigs |
The two weeks since Jan and Mark's arrival had flown by, and it was time to start heading north again. We were fortunate that the arrival of the increased winds coincided with our planned timeline and didn't cut short our southward journey. As I looked at the map of the Exumas, I was astonished at how little of it we had seen. We covered the portion inside the inner oval in the map below; the entire chain of the Exumas is within the outer enclosure. Now we understand why people come back to the Bahamas year after year. . We've only just begun....
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