After a beautiful Easter snorkeling around Cambridge and catching up with Island Khaya after many weeks, we woke and Jon steered us out of the field and north towards Warderick Wells. It was a good trip until the very end when we were caught in some pretty heavy squalls and ended up puttering around outside the final entrance to the Park field channel. Other than poor Jon getting soaked, the squalls passed and in we went before the next round got too close. Funny that we didn't remember the heavy current inside the mooring field but maybe that's because we didn't know any better that first time around? We got ourselves on the ball and checked in with a hello to Andrew and cookie delivery. That was between being stalked by a little bird who actually flew in the salon to make a play for the bread I had made...he was cute and I did share a few crumbs of bread, but outside.
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| Hardy current coming out of the cut at Cambridge that morning |
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| He had some gumption and no problem making himself at home in the cockpit |
You know the thing that is hard about doing these updates so many weeks later is that the little details evaporate. For example, I had forgotten that I made cookies on the way to Cambridge
as Easter treats for Island Khaya (and us) and for a treat for Andrew.
I also forgot that the day before, Mark had dropped the ring of air pump
nozzle adapters in the water and I had jumped in to get
them--essentially scaring the crap out of the remora who had decided to
adopt our boat. No, not a shark at all--we learned that the first time there when we saw "something" in the water--is that a shark? No, remora...little stinkers. Ok so anyway, then there was my great idea to swim to Island Khaya to deliver their cookies. No problem swimming over but the current was faster than I had expected and swimming back was not easy...Mark to the rescue in the dinghy and pulled me back to our boat. Anyway, luckily we were always quick to take a lot of pictures. And what made me think of that was looking at pictures of the two/three remoras who were under our boat at Warderick Wells...we were taking photos like crazy trying to capture them.
Our time at the park was only going to be a few days and was precious to me because it was the last time we'd be in the Exumas. Was it then that reality started to set in? Nah, probably not because there was snorkeling and hiking to be done!! Jon even got one of the kayaks out and took a tour of the mooring field! Mark and I took the dinghy over to the Rangers Garden and did some drift snorkeling--again, the current was pretty strong--and on our second time across, Mark spotted a handsome eel among the coral. We had found a massive lobster before that and while poking the camera in his "face" his grouper body guard came up and gave us a major grouper stink eye. If you can imagine a huge grouper swimming up and giving you an underwater dirty look, that's pretty much just what it was like! If we had only gotten it on film! LOL!!
We also snorkeled around the wrecked boat on Ball 9. I didn't expect much and was truly blown away to see the reef that it had formed. We also spotted a gigantic ray and back at the boat I was able to snap a picture of it in all its grace and glory. They are so fantastical...grace, speed when they want, gliding and 'flying' while you watch hypnotized. And for my bragging rights: back at the boat I put on the snuba gear and actually went underwater, breathing through the regulator. Scared, yep; death grip on the rudder, yep; claustrophobic under the water, yep; calmed down after a bit of time letting the weights take me down a tad and just hanging around under the boat, yep. You'll have to trust me that I did well for my first time. No screaming or crying LOL!!
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| Trying to be sassy |
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| Magnificent creature |
We also took advantage of our time and had a really amazing hike...we headed towards the south of the Cay this time and got sooooo close to the Pirates Lair trail but ran out of time and mostly ran out of water--yikes! So around we turned and back up the eastern coast line for "home". Our timing was perfect for a get together with Andrew complete with homemade pizzas. It was a joy to spend time with Andrew again. I was happy to learn that he has someone to help with the office management now and that will free his time up for park and natural resource management as well as patrols and protecting the land and waters from ne'er-do-wells and worst yet, poachers and drug mules. I have a lot of respect for him and meeting and getting to know him was a high point of the trip.
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| I think this is the only live snake I saw on the whole trip...lotta dead ones in the road so nice to see a little cutie enjoying his nice snake house. |
As always, the sunsets were like little gifts we got each night...
The next morning we were up at sunlight and making our way back east; destination: the Island of Eleuthera, the middle/southern area--Rock Sound to be exact.
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| Heading out the cut on our way to Eleuthera; good bye and thank you Exumas! |
