Wednesday, March 16
Yay! We got a great mooring at Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park on Warderick Wells Cay—it was close enough to the Park Office that we were able to get the wireless internet right on our boat! After we tied up to mooring #12 as assigned by the park lady on the VHF, we went ashore to pay for the mooring and the 24 hours of wireless internet. The park office was filled with lots of other things we needed as well. There was a good book exchange and many plant, bird, and fish identification books. Nancy and Tom had already fixed us up with a good West Indies bird book and the trails around the island labeled lots of plants, so our real need was a fish and coral identification book. We found a great one that not only identified fish but asterisked ones that were edible! Sweet—just what we needed—and the pages were waterproof too!
The wireless internet ended up fairly useless as it came and went—mostly went. My plan had been to stay up most of the night and get caught up on the blogging and emailing-oh well. As it turned out, I got a good night’s sleep which is certainly a good thing.
Exploring on Warderick Wells Cay was fun. We took the 15 minute hike to the top of Boo Boo Hill and read all the plant identification signs along the way. Boo Boo Hill is topped with a messy collection of drift wood signs. It must be some kind of tradition or something, but boats carve elaborate (and some not-too-elaborate) signs with their boat names, capt. & crew names, and dates to post for posterity. We enjoyed reading the names—recognizing a few. It seems that they don’t last longer than a season or two up there on the top of that windy hill. Pictures are below.
Exploring on Warderick Wells Cay was fun. We took the 15 minute hike to the top of Boo Boo Hill and read all the plant identification signs along the way. Boo Boo Hill is topped with a messy collection of drift wood signs. It must be some kind of tradition or something, but boats carve elaborate (and some not-too-elaborate) signs with their boat names, capt. & crew names, and dates to post for posterity. We enjoyed reading the names—recognizing a few. It seems that they don’t last longer than a season or two up there on the top of that windy hill. Pictures are below.
In addition, there were beach and bird explorations. The main beach on Warderick Wells can be seen below. There is a re-constructed 52 foot sperm whale skeleton on the beach posted with signs telling us that the whale died because it ingested plastic items—bags and such. It was a warning to all of us to avoid careless garbage bag tossing!
The birds are bananaquits who love sugar. At the park office folks are allowed to feed them (see picture of several birds in hand at park office), but all the brochures warned that feeding birds and other wild life is forbidden as it’s not good for them and makes them dependent beggars.
So, if you think you recognize our cockpit and my hand in some of the pictures, we claim total innocence—we were not feeding that bird! It swooped down on us and stole that sweet stuff from us—honest! Hope you enjoy the pictures!
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