We motored the five miles from Shroud to Hawksbill and anchored near Odyssey, who had gone directly from Norman's. We'd hoped for some good snorkeling and took a grueling dinghy ride bashing through the waves to the south and east sides of the island, but we couldn't find anything with the look bucket that seemed worth getting wet for. All was not a total waste as the tiny islets clustering around the south end of Hawksbill Cay were rugged scenery worth taking a look at.
The kids on Odyssey were so taken with our homemade "lookie bucket" that they begged for a bit of our leftover Plexiglas to make one. They didn't actually have a bucket to use, but buckets (in varying condition) are a common find on Bahamas beaches -- and in fact that afternoon while beachcombing Britt and I found a perfect bucket and brought it back for them.
We'd come to Hawksbill Cay to check out the Loyalist-era ruins (the Loyalists being those American colonists who, preferring to remain British, moved to the Bahamas), so we dinghied around to the right spot, found the trailhead, and somehow managed to follow the rather overgrown trail. The trailblazes consisted of bits of plastic rope tied to trees here and there. We only found a section of wall with some broken pottery arrayed along it, and a few piles of rubble which might have been walls at one time, but apparently there is much more. The scrubby forest was densely filled with thorny plants, though, so we didn't explore too much.
The next day promised a frontal passage. The wind had already filled in from the southwest by morning, making the anchorage a bit rolly, so we left shortly after 8 am and had a terrific sail to Warderick Wells, the headquarters of the Exuma Land and Sea Park. Our route cut around a big shoal area, with the last leg northeast and therefore downwind; by then, the wind had picked up to 20 knots, so it was fast and fun. We could see the line of clouds marking the front, slowly overtaking us. When it did, things got a little wild -- we saw gusts in the upper 20's, and the wind moved more to the north -- but we'd seen it coming and had rolled in some sail in anticipation.
The "north anchorage" at Warderick Wells is actually a mooring field only; we'd called the park by VHF in the morning and gotten our assignment, #21. As it turns out, there are 22 mooring balls, arrayed in a narrow ring around a big sandy shoal which is exposed at low tide. Between the howling wind and the typical Bahamian ripping current, staying in the dark blue strip of water without bumping into any of the other boats was a task which required our full attention. I passed the red turning buoy in front of the park HQ, and Britt thought it looked a little deeper a bit past it, so I didn't turn immediately. Suddenly, the VHF squawked, "Sailboat at the turning buoy...Windom...turn to starboard NOW!" (We turned to starboard NOW.) The next day some friends of ours showed up, and although we didn't see them come in, we chatted with them that evening. They said that they'd done as we did, continuing straight for a bit after the turning buoy -- and they'd bumped smack into a reef! (Fortunately neither their boat nor the reef was too damaged.)
The island of Warderick Wells is crisscrossed by trails. These seemed to be better maintained than the one on Hawksbill, and we spent a lot of time hiking over the two days we were there. It's another swiss-cheese limestone island, and the trails wound around and between holes ranging from ankle-breakers to oubliettes. One large dry cistern had a rough ladder inside, so we descended and took a look around. It reminded us of our slot canyon hiking in the American Southwest, the rock shaped by the water that had dripped through over millenia.
Another trail took us by more Loyalist ruins, these more extensive than what we'd seen before. The rock walls were plastered together with a conch-shell mortar, similar to the oyster-shell "tabby" we'd seen at Fort Frederica in Georgia. One waist-high wall spanned the island from east to west, and we speculated on its original purpose. We made a big loop across the southern end of Warderick Wells, connecting trails and beaches and a nice clearing called the "Pirate's Retreat".
We explored underwater as well. The first snorkel we did was a dive on the wreck of a boat that had caught fire and sank in the anchorage some years ago; a shark apparently hangs out under the hull, but we didn't see it, although we did see many fish and some huge lobster. We also dove on the reef we'd unknowingly almost hit. Since the currrent was strong, we took turns drift diving while the other followed in the dinghy. The most interesting thing about this area is that the lobsters are totally fearless, since they are protected, and waltz around right out in the open instead of retreating to their hidey-holes. We also saw a small shark snoozing on the bottom.
The best snorkeling we did was off a little islet 1.25 miles north of the anchorage. Brad's Reef is written up in the guide as a spectacular spot, but it doesn't get a lot of visitors since it's fairly exposed. We had calm weather though and zipped over along with Alex, Penelope and the kids to check it out. We first got into the water next to some offlying rocks, which turned out to be carpeted with coral and swarming with fish. The crevice between the rocks was a narrow and colorful canyon. The second spot we chose was a shallow but extensive reef of interlocking branches of elkhorn coral. Bright fish darted in and out of the coral maze, and one enormous school of small grunts swam slowly around above it. It was truly an incredible spot and worth the long ride.
We'd heard on the VHF that Staniel Cay, 20 miles south of Warderick Wells, would be holding an all-day beach party and pig roast on Saturday to benefit their library, and lots of cruisers we knew were planning to attend, so we headed down there as well. This meant skipping some spots we wanted to see, but we figured we could just backtrack -- it's not like we're in a big hurry to get anywhere. For the first time we traveled on the Exuma Sound side, in the deep water to the east of the Exumas, rather than on the shallow Banks side. We got a late start on Friday afternoon, since we'd done the big snorkeling trip to Brad's Reef around noon, so we only went a few miles, down to Compass Cay, and continued to Staniel the following day.
Compass Cay marks the southern end of the Exuma Land and Sea Park, so as soon as we passed through the cut to Exuma Sound we dropped a few lures in the water. Both we and Odyssey slowly zigzagged back and forth across the dropoff, where the bottom quickly falls from a hundred feet to several hundred fathoms, hoping this would be a good strategy. We caught a small barracuda, which Penelope assured us was good eating (small ones caught in open water are unlikely to be ciguatoxic), thus winning the Compass to Staniel Fishing Tournament by a score of 1 to 0. We also hooked something really big that ran off with a bunch of line before it finally slipped off the hook. The barracuda turned out to be really delicious (marinated in Nellie and Joe's Key West Mojo Criollo, then grilled), moist and sweet and just a little oily.
Another day Britt went "grocery snorkeling" with Paul from Effie, catching a red snapper and a small glasseye snapper. Both were tasty, but the glasseye was the sweeter of the two; I don't know if it was the size or the species.
The pig roast was a big event, with people from perhaps 40 boats and quite a few islanders, including the ranger from the Warderick Wells station and his wife. We caught up with some people we'd met elsewhere, and met a few new ones. The social scene was a little weird, though. All the yachties (white) chatted with other yachties, the black islanders talked with the other black islanders, and the white locals, who were running the event, for the most part just talked among themselves. An older black man walked up to me and said something, but I could not figure out what he was saying at all. He earnestly repeated whatever it was he was saying, and I, feeling bad, apologized for not understanding his patois. He kept talking to me and I just looked blank. Not much of a poster child for good relations with the locals, I'm afraid. I wanted to talk to people, get to know them...but it's a lot easier with other boaters, because you know you have at least that in common. The man finally moved on to someone else, and the same thing happened. At least the kids all played together, shrieking and running around. Mallory on Whish, whose 11th birthday was the following day, invited all the kids, yachties and locals, to her birthday party (much to the surprise of her parents).
The evening closed with a bunch of the (black) islanders bringing out drums and cowbells and other noisemakers. They built a fire and warmed their drums, then lit Sterno cans and placed them inside the drums. Our guess was that the heat expands the metal drum body and keeps the head drawn tight. They played various rhythm pieces, punctuating the drum beats with shakes of the bells and blasts on a whistle. The infectious music had every foot tapping. One local man with a distinctive potbelly danced around with a broomstick, shimmying his considerable hips, rolling his eyes and letting his tongue hang out. One kid, probably no more than eight years old, stuffed a balloon under his shirt and reached for the broomstick. He danced with it, flapping his tongue and rolling his eyes, and everybody howled with laughter -- the potbellied man most of all.
When we arrived at Staniel Cay, we first anchored in the deep and scoured-out area near Club Thunderball, south of the cut and north of town. Lots of boats were anchored there, including Odyssey and Effie, but we couldn't get our anchors to set well. Eventually we just figured two half-set anchors equalled one reasonable one, and went snorkeling with Keith and Cheryl from Colleen. Afterward we checked out the spot where they were anchored -- east of our anchorage, along the south shore of Big Major's Spot in shallow sand -- and decided it looked a lot better. We returned to our boat, motored over near Colleen, and found a nice bit of sand where our anchors buried beautifully.
As the afternoon went on, more boats came in, and many anchored in our former anchorage. We noticed one, an Oyster (a lovely boat) which we've seen before, anchoring pretty much in the place we'd vacated. Well, that night, the wind picked up. We checked on our anchors a few times, but everything looked good, and we woke up in the same place we went to sleep. Paul, Lise and Ian on Effie didn't sleep as well; the Oyster dragged anchor in the night, stopping only 20 feet from Effie. Even more aggravating, the next day, the skipper of the Oyster berated Paul for "arriving in the middle of the night and anchoring so close!" When Paul tried to point out that he had been there for two days, and the Oyster had dragged, the man got even more irate, and his wife shrieked, "What are you thinking, what are you doing to us?" At this point, Paul decided the better part of valor would be to just go somewhere else, so Effie weighed anchor and moved.
Windom, of course, was just an impartial observer, but we would like to point out that 1) we saw the boats in the morning, and it sure looked to us like the Oyster had moved and Effie hadn't, and 2) the Oyster in question is the same boat we saw drag anchor and ground in Annapolis this past summer.
The big underwater attraction in the Staniel Cay area is the Thunderball Cave, where scenes for Thunderball and Splash were filmed. I was sure it couldn't possibly live up to its hype. Boy, was I wrong. It was such an incredible place to snorkel, we did it twice. You need to go at slack tide, because the currents are very strong, and most people go at low tide, because it's easier to get into the cave without diving underwater. We went at high tide, and it was awesome.
The cave is huge, and there are a few open spots at the top of the largest chamber where the sun shines in and lights up the water inside. In some places the ceiling is only a few feet above the water, and in some places it's twenty or more feet high. At high tide, there are five entrances which require diving underwater, and two more which can be followed in without dunking. Of course, we swam back and forth through every hole, including the smaller and deeper ones that required a bit more mental effort. Looking out from the cave, underwater, the entrances all gleamed vivid blue. And the fish! People often bring breadcrumbs to feed the sergeant-majors, and they have come to expect them, swarming around all the snorkelers in great clouds. We also saw grouper, angelfish, snappers, and several lobster tucked away in a crevice. (The cave is a protected area) The coral formations were also very nice, especially one group of iridescent blue vase sponges. All in all, a spectacular place.