Exuma Land and Sea Park - Second Visit

We pulled up anchor on Sunday morning, waived goodbye to Donn on Falcon at the dock as we passed, and headed out to the Exuma Land and Sea Park.


Waving Goodbye to Donn and the Staniel Cay Marina
That morning, a man was kitesurfing near our boat and I got this photo. I don’t remember seeing the “spot” in the sky. Bob thinks it was maybe a waterspot on the lens, I think it is a UFO and I’m sticking to it.

Kitesurfer and UFO
Exuma Park has two adjoining moorings at Warderick Wells. We stayed at the Emerald Rock mooring site on the way down, this time we stayed at the equally beautiful North mooring closer to the Park HQ building. The North mooring field is protected from winds from all directions except the NE. It is very shallow with sand that dries, or almost dries at low tide, with only a swath of deeper water. It is like mooring in crème. The Park HQ sits at the top of a hill overlooking both mooring fields with terrific views.


Pretty Penny Moored at Exuma Park North Mooring Field
After arriving, we took the dinghy over to a site shown on the map as a “Coral Garden” to snorkel. It was low tide, but we discovered that the current was starting to run and we had to paddle like the devil to get back to the boat. We then went and found a nice quiet beach where I tied the float to the dinghy and just pretended to be a vegetable. What peace.


It's so peaceful here, even the birds take a rest here.
We got up Monday morning and went to the park office to pay our fees and I took some photos of some Bananaquits while I was there. I enhanced this one so you can see it better. These little guys love sugar, so I took some to attract them and they were there in a flash. In other countries where they are known to live, their name translates literally to “sugar thiefs.”

Banaquit enjoying our sugar


Banaquit #2 (sorry I didn't have the better camera with me)

Monday morning I spent time getting the blog and email up-to-date. Then we went exploring in the park area. We found a wonderful protected beach just around the ridge that protects the harbor and enjoyed a relaxing afternoon watching the clouds roll in. We got back to the boat in time to close up the hatches and doors before the rain came. It turned out to be a bit of a fizzle.

We had invited Mike and Darlene on Etoile from a neighboring boat over for wine and nibbles and spent a nice evening chatting with them.

They are headed to Highborne Cay and Nassau, like we are, but plan on going to Spanish Wells after that. We’ll have to do Spanish Wells next year.