Warderick Wells and the ECLSP Headquarters

We left out of Shroud as soon as our mooring was confirmed at the park.  Symmetry (the boat we met the night before) was also leaving that day for the park and we thankful again for us because they missed their call by the park.  Luckily they were going ashore so I was able to flag them down and let them know the park was calling them to confirm their mooring.  We knew later that day that they would have been a ball for them anyway but with the activity in that part of the park--better safe than sorry.  We have been so blessed to meet other boats these last five months who have helped us, and as I mentioned, it felt good to be able to do the same for others.  Anyway, off we went in low tide of course, because we do weird stuff like that.  It was a quick ride to Warderick Wells and I was very excited.  I knew that there were multiple snorkel sites as well as numberous trails on the Cay--this was a stop I had been looking forward to for some time.

We spent five nights at that Cay and words fail me on everything we did and saw and experienced.  Sweet couple on Symmetry invited us over the first night for cocktails to thank us for our help.  Such a nice couple!  The next night we went over for the Saturday night happy hour and I am proud to say my dish was a hit, not bad since I made it up two hours before hand.  Waffle pretzels with cream cheese/crushed red pepper "piped" on top, sprinkled with chopped apricots and drizzled with honey.  Anyway, I'm not really good at group activities like that and we had planned to have dinner aboard and celebrate our arrival with our Gadino Petit Verdot that we'd been saving since Maryland and Jon had Chimay.  My point is that we were not going to stay very long.  Well, shut my mouth because it was a great fun time and I really liked the other boats there and they were so generous with advice and suggestions for us (ok, plus they liked my dish, I admit it).  We ended up staying well after dark and GUESS WHAT?! the little hutias came out of the trees to join the party.  All the boaters left except us and we got to spend time with the Park manager and the great fellas from the BASRA.  That was probably the best part--it always is, isn't it?  Meeting the fine people who work at the places we visit.  A few nights later, we invited Andrew, the park manager, to dinner on the boat.  That was another good night and he is a dedicated and cool guy.  I can honestly say that we wish him all the very best and respect his hard work and ability to deal with so many different types of boaters and people.  I could never do it and he makes it look easy.

Our days there were full of beautiful weather (it rained--poured actually--two nights that we were there but at night so it was awesome), sun, kinda windy but still lovely, swimming and snorkeling around the boat, snorkeling at the various sites there, hiking...

We saw things here that we'd not seen before--sharks in the water while we were, for example.  They boys got the Snuba in the water a few times and we also found out that the batteries were not charging properly.  We'll not get into that but suffice it to say that the issue has been resolved and no one "got bent" as they say.  We snorkeled and saw stromatolites as well. So much in so little time...and yeah we went back that last night to get pictures and video of the hutias :-)

I'm not doing it justice and all I can say is that I will go back there to do all the things we didn't have time to do!!  The place is amazing and gorgeous and still natural and a treasure.  Here are photos and I know the boys have even more that I don't have...

That's my bag of office supplies and Andrew was appreciative

The perfect time to open our Gadino--it was very difficult to save it for so long!

This poor whale was killed by plastic...the amount of plastic we have seen on the beaches is embarrassing and disgusting.  One life change we hope to make is to drastically reduce our use of plastics even more when we get home.

Yeah so he just landed there in the mooring field, you know how that goes

So when we first went snorkeling down in the Rangers Garden, I got in and immediately saw a shark.  Direct quote "Oh hello...Mark, there's a shark under you."  Seems that he felt that was something that one would remove a snorkel before saying but I did not.  Just kept saying "There's a shark under you" with increasing annoyance that he was not understanding me.  Funny part was that I wasn't scared or panicked, just irritated that he "wasn't listening" haha.  He says next time I need to take the snorkel out first, especially when telling someone a shark is under him.  Sheesh, some people are so touchy ;-)

Then they donned the snuba gear and really went to town!

They got to see their own shark later that afternoon!  Amazing to see them out there in the natural...intimidating to know you are no longer at the top of the food chain down there.  But their purity and beauty is what stays with you.

Graceful enormous ray

The three caballeros go hiking...sure we can make it around the entire cay!

Hard to see but that's our offering at the top of BooBoo Hill...next time we come here, we'll be sure to bring something more spectacular spectacular

View down to the mooring field

We saw them and heard them...a couple days later Mark saw the water blowing from the boat and I got to see it too.  I would have been overwhelmed to see it from the hill itself.  Water and tides are awesome powers.

Huge pond in the middle of the Cay

So many stunning views but our minds and souls drank each one in

This was the day we dinghied down to the southern part of the Cay near Pirates Lair between Warderick Wells and Hog Cay.  Here we snorkeled on the stromatolites...they looked ancient and to think that they are part of earths fossil record and can be 3.5 million years old...moving to see them when you have some idea of what they are.  As much as looking at the stars can make you feel small, so can looking at the fossilized history of the earth.

We left the dinghy on this beach and snorkeled the coral right off of it...so unassuming but so beautiful.  Sun fish and parrot fish, a wee barracuda, hundreds of fish, so many types of coral and colors.  The guys saw a little ray and a little sea turtle too.

On our way back from the south mooring field, we stopped at a coral head near Emerald Rock...again, an unassuming little spot with an abundance of life...we saw four humongous lobsters there!  The next head over was completely different but still a wonder...each one is its own magical underwater world!

Moon rise over Booboo Hill

And the stars of the show!!

I can see why people come to Warderick Wells and stay for a long time...I was shocked at the number of boats that popped in and out.  Perhaps they've been there before but more often I heard a variation of boats wanting to get to Georgetown...really?  Look around you--this place is like a fantasy, why not stay a few days?  I won't speak for Jon but I know Mark and I could have stayed there another five days but in our hearts we all knew that we wanted to see more and were coming to the realization that our time was actually getting short.  All fine and good to say we needed to be home in June but none of us had grasped the fact that we'd need actual time to do that...can someone please invent a time machine in the next six weeks?  We need it because we'd rather be here four more weeks than taking four weeks to get back home to US waters.  So of course we debated staying/leaving/staying/leaving because of some high winds forecasted.  The next morning, we made the decision to leave, knowing that we'd be beating into high winds all the way to Halls Pond Cay.

And yep, that's what happened...beat being the operative word.  But the lure of Johnny Depp's Cay was too strong to overpower logic and sense...so off we went.