Shroud Cay – Warderick Wells

It was Easter Sunday – no Easter Eggs unfortunately. We’d bought a small pack of mini crème Eggs in Nassau and managed to lose them. The kids were great and didn’t mind at all ... well, very much. They had decided that Daddy had either mislaid them or eaten them and just rolled their eyes in resignation.

Today’s destination was Warderick Wells, at the heart of the Exuma Land and See Park. It’s uninhabited but houses the Park Headquarters, has some land trails, some great places to snorkel and some excellent mooring buoys. The buoys are allocated daily on a first come, first served basis via VHF radio so we needed to get going early to get in range of the Park and make our request. When we arrived at Warderick Wells Cut, we discovered that there was an Easter Sunday “Pot Luck” being held on the beach at 2pm. Now although the distance between our mooring and the cut was about 1 mile as the crow flies, we had to negotiate sandbanks that made it about a 45 minute journey.

But we made it! We took a couple of hastily assembled dishes and assembled on the beach with other human beings. Yachtie party talk is all about wind, tide and current, anchorages, marinas, different kinds of boat, where to get great provisions, places not to miss, places to miss...It’s a whole different world. But for the Yachtie this kind of talk is invaluable because inside information is hard to find on the net.

Party over and we got to the business of finding great snorkelling. We were anchored near Emerald Rock which was a good spot regardless of tide or current so party one went off to snorkel. Emerald Rock is a tiny round island in the middle of the sandy bay: on top it’s covered with vegetation, birds and insects while below the sea it’s covered in coral, fans and sealife. Party one reported beautiful Queen Triggerfish and tiny Angels. I went in party two and we struck out to some isolated coral heads south of Emerald Rock. I was on a moray hunt when I say the most enormous lobster lurking in the rocks. Lobsters are protected in the Exuma Park so I suppose they get to grow big.

We were moored next to a diving platform and the kids made good use of this till we hauled them in to eat.

Pics:
North mooring site at Warderick Wells. The boats moor in the dark blue bits!
Above water life
Diving platform