Like summer typically does, June seemed to fly by. I really don’t know where all our time went – although according to our date stamped photos, much of it was spent underwater in the Exumas. After dropping off my parents at Georgetown, we have began slowly making our way north back towards Florida. There is still lots to see along the way, including these areas of the northern Exuma chain that we missed when initially crossing over from Eleuthera.
Weekend at Wardrick Wells
We’ve spent a lot of time in the Exumas Land and Sea Park, but have yet to make it towards the northern end (and headquarters) at Wardrick Wells, so that’s where we’re headed. There is no cell service or WiFi in this area of the park, so Matt takes off an extra day of work and we let our families know that we will be out of touch for a bit. As we approach the park, we call out to the park office on VHF Channel 9. Lucky for us, someone answers despite having closed up a few minutes ago. We are assigned the mooring ball which will be our home for the next two nights – lucky number 11.
This is our first time spending the night on a mooring ball, although we have picked up several at dive sites to spend a couple hours. We aren’t exactly nervous, but the mooring balls are quite close together and reviews have indicated the current can be wicked through this area. I head up to the bow with the boat hook as Matt slowly eases us up to the mooring ball, against the current. I snag it on the first try and in a few minutes we’re securely tied up feeling pretty good about our smooth entrance. Turns out – we managed to approach at slack tide when the current was pretty light. We’ll pretend that was expert planning.
The park office is closed so we aren’t able to pick up a map showing the snorkeling sites in the area, but we know of a few snorkel moorings, so we set off in that direction after getting settled. There is a set of 4 different small moorings all in the same general location. We stop at the first one, roll into the water, and are immediately disappointed. This can’t possibly be the whole area – it’s one, literally only one, coral head. It covers maybe 20 feet, and sure there are several small fish swimming around, but this is not worthy of a dedicated mooring. Thinking there must be some mistake, we check out the other 3 moorings. No mistake – just some sort of cruel joke. Each one marks 1-2 coral heads that take a whopping 5 minutes max each to snorkel. I have no idea why the park decided to invest in moorings to mark these spots, but I’m no longer feeling optimistic about our snorkeling adventures in the northern Exumas. Trying to reign in our disappointment, we decide to check out another snorkel area that is marked with two moorings. It definitely looks better, but the current is ripping through the area. There’s absolutely no way we can tie up our dinghy and swim off. We decide to do our typical drift snorkel, where we take turns holding the dinghy painter and pulling it behind us. The flat coral here is pretty enough, but we don’t really see much – it’s still enjoyable floating by, though. We continue to let the current push us even past the reef through the entire mooring field. It’s mostly just for fun; a bit like a lazy river without the tube. We do spot lots of large sand dollars and some conch shells on our path, and are able to pop our heads up to check out the other boats moored nearby.
Back at our boat, we’re feeling a bit disappointed but are excited when we see a nurse shark with 3 remoras glide up to our swim platform. It’s obviously friendly and use to interacting with people. I think it must know how disappointed we are with the snorkeling and lack of marine life, so it comes over to make us feel better. Contributing to the problem of humans feeding sharks, we give it a nice treat of tuna. Monster is a bit jealous, so we make the shark share a little tuna with her as well. While the shark is a fun visitor, we’re a bit disappointed that we haven’t spotted any eagle rays yet. There are supposed to be 4 eagle rays that patrol up and down the mooring field – apparently they’re off for the weekend. We do have a barracuda and a couple turtles working the weekend shift as well, though – hard to complain.
The next day we are able to check into park headquarters office and pick up some maps of the hiking and snorkeling in the area. The term “maps” is a bit generous for the scanned copies of hand-drawn maps on white computer paper, dated with 2007, but I digress.
We see that there are a couple more snorkeling sites indicated on the map that are not marked by dive moorings. Feeling rejuvenated, we set out in the dinghy towards one of the further sites. A small reef and coral heads run along a cay, terminating just before a little sand beach. We pull the dinghy up onto the beach to let Monster have some quick exercise and then just swim out from the beach onto the reef (with the dinghy and Monster in tow). Initially, we’re happy to see some nice, pretty coral heads but it just keeps getting better. The reef gets larger, and more impressive as we swim out towards the tip of the cay. It’s really great, and such a relief after yesterday’s disappointment. There is a very faint current pushing us out, but not so strong that we can’t dive down and enjoy the reef. I think it’s one of the best places we’ve snorkeled so far in the Exumas. After running out of reef, we get back in the dinghy and begin heading towards one more site. We notice a wall of rain in the distance and are quickly forced to turn around, though. We make it back to our boat just before it starts pouring.
Shortly after the rain begins, we see a paddle board floating through the mooring field. We call out on Channel 16 alerting others in the area in hopes that the owner will go fetch it. The park answers our call, confirming that it doesn’t belong to them and making it clear that as such they have no intentions of going after it. After a couple more minutes with no one else answering, we decide we should go retrieve it. It’s pouring and we JUST pulled the dinghy up, but we’ve been the idiots to not properly tie up a paddle board before. We decide to be good Samaritans. As we are driving over, shielding our eyes from the painful pellets of rain, we see another dinghy heading for the board. After a quick chat we learn that it’s the rightful owners of the SUP and they heard our previous calls on the radio. It would have been really nice of them to just respond to our calls and save us this wet dinghy ride, but I’m still glad the board was safely returned in the end.
Our friends aboard S/V Dorothy Rose pulled into the mooring field earlier in the day, and we decide to run by their boat after the rain stops to say hi. We intend to invite them back to Sea Monster for drinks, but they invite us aboard for drinks right then instead. We happily accept, join them around the cockpit area, and begin swapping stories. Three hours later we realize that we’ve overstayed our welcome and that none of us have had dinner despite it being after 9pm and completely dark. We bid our friends farewell, hoping to see them again next year back in the Caribbean if not sooner.
Boo Boo Hill
Local legend says that Boo Boo Hill is haunted by souls of a ship that crashed into the surrounding reefs during a storm several years ago. The ship vanished and every person onboard perished. It’s said that on moonlit nights when the wind is howling, you can hear the spirits of those departed singing. This folklore combined with Boo Boo Hill offering scenic views, make it a popular hike in the park. At the top of Boo Boo Hill is a collection of driftwood signs, marking boats that have visited. Tradition has it that leaving driftwood at the top of Boo Boo Hill is an offering to King Neptune and the sea gods for good sailing and safe passage.
Obviously, we have to participate. Walking along a beach nearby, we spot a round piece of driftwood that looks like it’ll be perfect for our sign/offering. For the first time, I’m very grateful to have brought an entire bin of craft supplies with us! We choose to stick with the color scheme of Sea Monster, selecting navy and turquoise paint colors for our sign. Once we’ve carefully painted “Sea Monster” and added a paw print for good measure, we leave our creation out to dry. That doesn’t take long in this heat, and we get the great idea to seal the driftwood with epoxy! We are going to have the best looking and most durable driftwood offering there.
After the epoxy is cured (or at least good enough), we head out towards the trailhead that will lead us to the top of Boo Boo hill. The initial section of trail isn’t really a trail at all though – we’re carefully stepping on top of very sharp coral/rocks, trying to follow the sporadic splashes of yellow paint marking the trail. Matt’s flip flops prove to be no match for the jutting edges, and one of them breaks shortly after we begin. I hurry back to the beginning of the trail where I remember seeing an old pair of sandals that someone graciously left for the poor souls who don’t where shoes. I grab those and bring them back to Matt to use for the duration of our hike.
After a while, the trail does improve turning into more of a sandy path. Of course, then we have to cross a mangrove creek that is up past our knees at one point. Monster is enjoying being carried for most of this hike so far. The final part of the trail is an easy climb up a rocky path on the side of the hill. At the top, there is an option to head towards the pile of driftwood offerings or the opposite direction towards a blow hole. The ocean is calm and the blow hole isn’t blowing, so we just focus on getting our sign added to the pile. We come prepared with nails, a hammer, wire, and pliers in effort to secure our sign.
It’s pretty fun seeing all the other signs and recognizing boats that we’ve come to know or just seen along our journey. We quickly realize that we don’t in fact have the best sign after all – some people take this very seriously and obviously created signs before showing up. That’s okay, though – our sign still looks good and it’s the only one we see that has been epoxied!
Our sign and boat in the background!
Drifting through the northern Exumas
The northern Exumas are some of the cruising grounds of the liveaboard dive boat, Aqua Cat. We love trying to find dive sites where Aqua Cat takes guests because they always have well-kept mooring balls marking the sites. Based on some extensive research Matt has done, we have a few sites tentatively marked in our GPS and we are determined to find them.
First up is Hammerhead Gulch – and Matt’s coordinates prove to be very close. We spot a mooring ball and after some quick inspection, tie up to it. The wind is light and we only plan to stay long enough to dive, so we don’t have too much to worry about. The goal is to use the Brownie here since it’s around 20-30 feet deep; which is perfect for hookah diving. First, we need to check out the current, since that keeps being a problem in the Exumas. I put on my snorkel gear and drop the swim ladder into the water. I quickly realize I don’t even need to get in to tell that the current is very strong. The swim ladder never actually goes down since the current is pulling it backwards. I jump in and confirm the current is as expected. Looks like we will be enjoying a swift drift snorkel instead of using the hookah.
We drive the dinghy along the reef in the opposite direction of the current (and our boat) until it seems we’ve mostly run out of reef. From here we roll into the water, holding onto the dinghy, and let the current push us along. It isn’t so much pushing us as it is rocketing us forward – it’s so fast! In the matter of 60 seconds, we drift by a large sting ray, a reef shark, and a turtle. We don’t know where to look and Matt is having an awful time trying to catch anything on camera. It takes us only a few minutes to cover the entire distance – which is around half a mile I think (I’m not a great estimator). We think the current is about 2-3 knots through this gulch! It is a blast, so of course we decide to go again, and a third time. We also receive a free bottom cleaning on the boat from a remora here!
Our next targeted dive site is Lobster, No Lobster. Apparently, as this clever names suggests, when visiting this site sometimes you might spot lobster and sometimes you might not. As we get close to the approximate area, we are able to spot two mooring balls off in the distance. We motor over and manage to tie up to one of the moorings after some struggles. Surprise – there’s a strong current again!
We load into the dinghy and head up against the current to do some more drift snorkeling (and free diving). This site proves to be really great as well, with lots of large, impressive coral structures and a good amount of marine life. The current is extremely strong at the beginning of the dive which is close to a cut, but then lessens off to a more manageable drift back behind where our boat is moored. We take three passes at this location, trying to capture as many photos as the fast pace will allow.
Check out our underwater video for even more footage of the gorgeous reef and marine life!
The previous two dive sites have been on the inside of the Exumas (so west side), but there are also supposed to be a couple sites on the outside. We’re excited to check out a site on the outside, as we are thinking there might be a lot less current. Using Matt’s research and approximate location, we are able to find a dive mooring which we believe belongs to the dive site, Madison Avenue. Good news – we find little current here. Bad news – the waves and swell are pretty rough (often the case on the outside). We are able to get our boat tied up to the mooring, and Matt hops in the water to check things out. I decide to wait this one out, unless he determines it’s a not to be missed site. He spots a couple very large grouper (possibly another type of fish too) and notes that the coral structures are really nice, running along both sides of a sandy “avenue.” Given the waves, it doesn’t seem enticing enough though, so he climbs back on-board and we head towards our anchorage for the night.
The time has come to leave the Exumas and begin making our way towards the Abacos – but first, another visit to New Providence.
