If you walk down the beach a ways, here’s the view you get of the island and the pristine sandy beach.
We had to walk across the island, all of a couple hundred yards, to get to the Exuma Sound side with Bell Rock. The only wildlife are small salamanders and a few of the friendly sugar birds, the little ones that will sit on your hands and take sugar at Warderwick Wells. These guys weren’t that friendly (no sugar…) but were quite comfortable with our presence. Cute little rascals.
Oh, we did spot a hermit crab, snugged into a West Indian Top shell. This is a common shell on the beach – I think it’s time that this little guy find a larger house.
Here is an example of the path, with the view of the Exuma Sound side coming up.
The sound side is beautiful, bright green low growth, white cliffs, and the colors of the water.
Here is a good example of the water colors. You have to learn to “read the water” when you go to the Bahamas, learning what each color means. The charts aren’t good enough. Here you see the dark blue of deep water, probably at least 1000 ft deep, only a few hundred yards off shore. The next line of medium blue, closer to shore, is water that is navigable for us, probably 10-15 ft deep. Then come the tricky colors. The darker bits are coral bottom ocean areas, usually too shallow for us, maybe 3-5 ft.. The very light blue is sandy bottom areas, which can be very shallow or an acceptable depth, depending on where you are seeing it. This would definitely be too shallow, as it’s too close to shore. The brownish water is shallow, over a rocky bottom.
On our way back across the rocks, Luke caught this cute one of us and our fellow hikers Kris and Ron.
Next day, next island. The sound side can range from flat sandy beach
We were surprised to find one of the very few wading birds we’ve seen here. We just don’t see any of the blue herons, white egrets, etc, that are so common in the Chesapeake and Florida. This little guy seems to be a juvenile yellow night heron. He “hid” from us by freezing, making it easy for Luke to slowly creep close to him, getting this good picture.
This blogging is tough work --- here I am, suffering through the difficult work conditions.
Luke waited patiently.
Unfortunately, the winds picked up greatly on Tuesday to a steady 25-ish knots from the NW, with a cold front. Cambridge Cay mooring area is definitely a bit open to the NW, and it was somewhat bouncy, but not too bad. As I type this blog, we’re wearing sweatshirts with our shorts. We’ve heard about the freezing spell in Florida, here the temperatures have plummeted to a cool 65 and although the wind has slowed to around 15 knots, the constant wind and dry air feels cool. Yes, I know, No hate mail, please!!
On Wednesday we left Cambridge and headed the whopping 4 miles south to Compass Cay. Compass Cay is a private island, a private luxury resort, $8 each just to land the dinghy and go ashore. We opted for the free shore instead. Here we are, all alone in the whole anchorage, sitting in paradise.
We went ashore on the public island across from Compass and saw an amazing 6 eagle rays, huge creatures, maybe 5 ft in wingspan, idling slowing through about 4 ft of water. You can see 3 of them underwater here.
Next, a graveyard of conch shells. Conch shells are yellow and pink, black with age. I’ve never seen so many white ones before, bleached out from the sun. These have all been broken into, the animals taken for food, and the shells discarded.
SNAILCAR! No, I can’t get NASCAR, but Luke thought this was the next best thing. Snails racing for the primo spot on the shore. Maybe a day’s pace….. Doesn’t quite compete with Nascar…
Today, Thursday, we’re in one of our favorites, Staniel Cay. We'll be here several days. We had to order a part for our wind indicator (should be in on Friday) and need to install it. We did run around a bit when we arrived on Thursday, getting a few fresh groceries, like lettuce, bananas, apples, etc!
And we were treated to the most wonderful sunset yet..
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