Week 9: This IS the Dream
Once we had arrived in the Exuma Islands, our plan was to use our charts and explorer’s guide to identify specific islands that looked interesting, and then explore them one by one – staying at each until we were ready to move on to the next. We would keep going further down the Exuma chain of islands until it was time to turn around and start heading north towards our launching point for the crossing back to Florida. This meandering approach was wonderful and allowed us to witness the variety of artistry that nature has to offer, even within a relatively small area, where one might think everything would all look the same.
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| Highbourne Cay |
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| Morning Walk on Highbourne Cay |
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| Cairns at Highbourne Cay |
We started at Highbourne Cay, where you may remember our nervous neighbor who woke us mid-slumber. The next day, we woke to a perfect day: high of 80 degrees, water temperature 84 degrees, a light breeze pushing puffy white clouds across a blue sky, and extraordinary visibility in the water.
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| Photo taken from Dinghy: Depth 14 foot at Highbourne Cay |
Jan, Mark, Steve and I loaded our snorkel gear into the dinghy and all piled in. According to our charts, there were numerous coral heads within a quarter mile of where we were anchored – some as close as 300 yards.
After performing the obligatory snorkel preparation rituals, Jan, Mark and I exited the dinghy and found ourselves floating atop a beautiful coral head with vibrant, live coral and loads of tropical fish. On this particular expedition, I saw my first trigger fish, and beautiful, tiny bright blue fish babies. After the three of us snorkeled the whole reef, we returned to the starting point, and Mark took a turn manning the dinghy while Steve explored the same reef. Jan and I got back in the water with Steve, and this time were surrounded by thousands of tiny, brown jellyfish which were approximately the diameter of a pencil eraser. Thankfully they were the non-stinging variety. Steve spotted a shark a little way away, but it was too far to identify which kind.
Over the next couple of days, we established a pattern that would continue during the rest of our stay: morning snorkel, back to the boat for lunch, and then back out for an afternoon snorkel.
Highbourne Cay is shaped like a “H”, and we snorkled around the top half of it for the next couple of days. On Saturday, I saw a few more new creatures – a Nassau grouper, a a lesser electric ray, and several "sea turds" - which I later learned are actually called sea cucumbers. You be the judge.
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| Sea "Cucumber"??? (Photo from abacobulletin.com) |
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| Lesser Electric Ray (Photo from wikipedia.org) |
I also spotted corals that were baby blue and lavender., in addition to the more typical mustard yellow and maroon. Jan, who is an avid lobster hunter, called me over to look at a lobster she had found. I expected that she was going to point to a couple of antennae sticking out from a hole in a rock ledge, and since I’m not a lobster hunter, I wasn’t that excited about seeing it, but swam over because she was so excited. She pointed to an open sandy spot on the sea floor, and I was astonished to see a lobster that was at least two feet long, excluding antennae, just sitting out in the open. I learned later that when she had first spotted it, it was sparring with another lobster. It’s currently lobster mating season, and the boxing behavior she witnessed is part of their ritual.
On Sunday, the weather was calm enough to snorkel on the eastern side of the cay. Much of the coral was dead, but it was still awe-inspiring. Parts of it were tall structures that looked like sculptures and part of it was a big rectangle of uniform height, roughly the size of five football fields. There was also a bit of live coral and some fish feeding there – a puffer fish, barracuda, bi-color basslet and lane snapper, but, here, the beauty lay in the traces of what had been.
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| Catching Mahi on the Way to Shroud Cay |
| Shroud Cay |
Shroud Cay was selected as our next stop because of a "mangrove cut" crossing from the western side of the island to the east - a feature that Steve was interested in exploring - in addition to more coral reefs, and a beach for Jake, easily accessible by dinghy.
We spent the morning of Tuesday, April 25th, checking out the mangrove cut. It was beautiful and our venture was rewarded by seeing lots of turtles hanging out, periodically lifting their heads up for a breath.
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| Entry to the Mangrove Cut at Shroud Cay |
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| Traveling through the Mangrove Cut, Jan at the Bow |
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| Friendly Turtle |
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| Turtles Hanging Out |
We made our way through the cut, arriving on the western beach, aptly named the "Washin Machine" for the chop caused by wind and currents. We decided it was calm enough to see if the reefs off-shore were worth snorkeling, so Jan and Mark volunteered to jump in and check things out. Their swim was short though, since the current was fairly strong and there wasn't much to see, especially in light of our new Bahama standard of "good".
After lunch we stayed on the eastern side of Shroud Cay, and once again found a colorful and diverse environment. This particular location was dotted with beautiful coral heads that looked like carefully arranged bouquets of flowers. Their composition contained "blooms" of various heights and shapes, and just the right mix of colors - green, maroon, yellow, purple. I also spotted an unusual fish that I haven't been able to identify, which looked like a grouper of some sort, with electric blue markings in a striking pattern that reminded me of aboriginal tribal markings. [This is one of the parts where an underwater camera would have been nice.😕]
Although we could have happily stayed at Shroud Cay a bit longer, we decided to move on the next morning. All of a sudden it felt like time was passing quickly and there were several other highly recommended sites to visit. Next stop: Warderick Wells and the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park.
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