Cambridge Cay and Staniel Cay

Latitude 24 deg 10.50N

To give you a prospective of that, Deltaville is 37 deg 55.48 and our furtherest point north in Maine was 44 deg 48.68. The Tropic of Cancer starts at 23 deg 5, with the equator at 0 degrees. We MAY get as far as the Tropic of Cancer... not sure yet :-)

After leaving Warderwick Cay, we made a short, “brisk” sail to Cambridge Cay, still part of the Exuma Land & Sea Park. We took the outside route, via the Exuma Sound rather than the inside Exuma Bank. Probably a mistake, as it was pretty rolly, especially in the "cuts", the passages from the bank side to the sound side, but we made good time and got there in only 3 hours.

It was windy (18 to 22 kts) and cool at Cambridge Cay, so we didn’t snorkel, although it’s supposed to be one of the best areas. Instead, we took the dingy to the beach and walked a trail took us to the bay side of the park, to Bell Rock. The protected bank side was fairly calm and quiet. Here is our anchorage area, with a pond in the island in the foreground.

The Exuma Sound side was definitely rougher.

Bell Rock is huge, with a hole in it. Here we are, in front of it.

The trail to the top of the ridge on the island was steep, but good exercise.

Today we make the short (2 hr) run from Cambridge Cay to Stanial Cay. Stanial is a populated cay, with a “yacht club” (aka bar), gas and diesel, water, a nurse, internet (again, $10 for 24 hours) and a phone relay station. Cute cottages for rent, too.

They also have nurse sharks, right here at the marina docks. We saw 6 of them swimming together – here are 4.
Look at this sneaky one… lazing under a boat…I think they actually like the shade. I think they are pretty hamless, but we definitely didn’t want to fall into the water as we got in our dinghy.

We also saw a big eagle ray, about 4 feet across, in about 2 ft of water.

One big draw at Stanial Cay is Thunderball Grotto. Remember the old James Bond movie, Thunderball? Yulp, same one ! It was shot here in 1964. Thunderball Grotto is a cave half under water, half above, that you can snorkel into. Just go in at low tide and there are holes in the rock above that allow light to flow in. Lots of fish and coral life. Luke snorkeled into it, but I passed on it. Here is the grotto. The main entrance is on the other side, where the dingy is headed.

I mentioned “reading the water”. A lot of the water area here is uncharted, meaning you’re on your own to watch for depth and coral heads. Here is a good example of reading the water. Starting on the left side, the green water is over sand, probably too shallow for us. Light yellow-green is very shallow, probably about 2 ft deep. Light green may be 5 to 8 ft deep. The boats anchored over the light green are shallow draft boats, probably with only 2 ft or so under them. The next, darker area is full of grass, rocks, and a little coral. Very questionable, but deeper than the green. The far right blue water is deeper,about 12 feet, and good for us to transit and anchor in. That is Thunderball in the background.

We will be here several days, probably until Thursday. The weather forecast is for high winds (20-25 knots) and storm squalls. Not good stuff to be out in. We are sheltered here and will be fine.

2 more days at Warderwick Wells Cay, Exumas Park Headquarters

24 deg 23.609N (our lowest latitude yet!)

76 deg 37.972W

We spent 2 more wonderful days here. Thursday we went for a loooong hike across the island. Didn't make it the whole way. We climbed to the top of one the highest points for a wonderful view. First, one direction...

Then the other direction...


We climbed down the other side of the hill and made the very smart decision to walk around the "mountain" instead of back up & down, through the water, and back to the boat.



Wickie was thrilled to see us when we got back....


He's slowing down. Eats, begs for more to eat, washes, and sleeps. Mostly sleeps. He's not as interactive anymore, but he does still love his daddy's lap occasionally. And the voice of a new person to the boat always bring him up to see what's going on - still a curious cat.


Yesterday evening some of the cruisers instigated a potluck party at the ranger station on the beach. Almost everyone came and brought food. It was fun. I learned to bring my own dishes and silverware; didn't think about that and a good soul had extras. We're learning!


Today we decided to take a dingy ride around the island instead of hiking. It was long and beautiful. First, another isolated beach to wander on, Loyalist Beach.



Then around the point into the bay. The rocks are much higher and windswept/water washed on this side. Constant waves will do that!


We did a little snorkeling from the dinghy - Luke saw a big ray in addition to the usual fishes and reef life.


And a final treat--- there a dozens of little finch like birds here, hanging around the ranger office, all addicted to sugar. They beg for it, come to the boats for it, and will swarm to any hand holding it. It 's so cute, but they probably all die from diabetes at an early age! I had 12 birds in my hand at one time. Luke easily had that many.




Tomorrow (Saturday, Feb. 21) we plan to leave with several other boats to go to Cambridge Cay. Supposed to be beautiful -- surprise! We won't have Internet for a few days, so I'll be back when I can!

Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park

We enjoyed our stay at Highborne Cay marina. I just love the Bahamas – look at this stop sign.

We took a walk around the private island that the marina is located on. The bay side, across the island from the marina, is beautiful beach and mangrove trees and palms.

We found this little guy. He’s taken over one of those tree snail shells, the same type as the one that decided to climb up my curtain.

The marina itself Is small, catering mostly to larger motor boats. There were only 2 sailboats in the marina.
After we left the marina, we sailed about 3 hours to Shroud Cay, one of the northernmost cays in the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park. The park was established in 1958 to preserve and maintain the delicate ecological balance on the marine life. It is about 22 miles long, comprised of quite a few small cays.

They are all protected, no fishing, collecting of conch or lobster, no taking of any live or dead sea shells. The park offers several areas that have moorings to use instead of anchoring. Dropping an anchor on the top of a coral reef can do a lot of damage. We used one of the moorings provided at Shroud Cay, although there was nothing but sand underneath. It’s only $20 to use a mooring.
Luke has climbed the coral rocks to the drop box for our payment… OSHA would be screaming…

We made our way carefully along the coral rocks to the top of the island, following a sign that said “well”. There IS a well here, along with a bucket tied to a mangrove tree. The wall around the well was done in 1927, according to the scratching in the concrete. We dropped the bucket in to check the water – yes, it’s salty. I read later that the water “layers” here, similar to the cave we visited in Lucaya. The seawater comes up from the ocean, but in the spring, when there is more rain, the non-salty rain water collects on the top of the salt water. I’m guessing it takes an experienced hand to skim off the fresh water from the salty.

Next stop, Warderwick Wells Cay, the headquarters of the park. You can not anchor in this area, only use one of the park provided mooring balls. It’s small, with 21 mooring balls in the main mooring field. Because of the uncertainly of weather and boating, they don’t take reservations, but have a selection system of their own. If you want a mooring, you call the office the day before you want to be there to get put on the “list”. Full almost every night, there is a 9 AM call-in each morning. First, the boats that are leaving that day call in on the VHF radio. Next, the ranger calls out each boat that is on the list, asking if they still want a mooring and confirming their length and draft. Then anyone else who hasn’t “pre-registered” puts their name on the list. The ranger signs off and does the math, juggling the number of moorings available and putting boats into them, ones that match the length and draft requirements of each mooring ball. It’s very shallow and narrow, so the moorings are not equal. After about 30 minutes, the ranger calls back out on the VHF, calling each boat by name in the order in which they were on the list. Now, there are are 3 mooring fields in the park. The treasured “northern mooring field” which is right in front of the park office, has easy access to the beach and trails, and for most boats, allows on-board internet service (rather than having to sit on the office porch). The northern mooring field is where we are. We were lucky.

Each boat is either given the guarantee of a mooring ball in the northern field or given the option of taking one of the other mooring fields. Without exception, the boats that didn’t make the cut opted to be put back on the list for the next day instead.

As soon as we got here, we signed in and started exploring. There is a trail that goes across the island from the bank side to the bay side of the island. This is again a coral rock trail.

It goes across Banshee Creek, dry in the low tide, flooded at high. Thank goodness it was low tide.

Past Banshee Creek, you climb the other side of the island to beautiful views of the bay.

This is looking towards the bank side, showing the rest of the island.

At the very top of the island is Booboo Hill. A boatload of missionaries crashed here, drowning all of them. Legend has it that the hill is haunted and at night, you can hear them singing hymns in the distance. Boaters leave a piece of wood (preferably driftwood) with their boat name as a gift, trying to ensure safe seas.

Also at the top is a blowhole. Look carefully --- Luke’s hat brim is blown up and flat, and the sleeve of his yellow shirt is blown up. We watched it literally blow the baseball cap off one guy.

Snorkeling is supposed to be wonderful here, but the water temperature is 74, and I’m sorry, that’s just a little too cold for me.
There is a nice porch on the ranger station, where folks gather to talk. Just look at this view. Another day in Paradise! That's Latitudes, closest.

Lucaya to Highborne Cay, Exumas

This will be a fairly long blog. I’ve kept a draft blog as we travel, since we don’t have internet for several days, with no real idea of when we’ll get it back. So, we’ll start on Saturday, Feb. 7, and go from there. If you don't want to read through all of this, at least look about 1/2 way down at the picture of the manatees :-)
We left the “big city” of Lucaya early, 6:30-ish, on Saturday morning. This is the last of the high rises for a while.

This is early morning, just leaving the Lucaya inlet. It looks calm, doesn’t it?

It wasn’t…. this was one of the worst sails we’ve had. The wind picked up, started out 10-15 kts apparent – all sails up, (for the sailors, close reach) then 15 to 20 – think about reefing, then into 20-25 –reef the main, then occasionally 25 – 30 - reef the main some more. Waves were higher than we’d like, the ocean swells were rolling, and we’re into them at about 45 degrees. There was not any danger, just a miserable 10 hour sail (yes, we could at least sail - 7 to 8 kts at times), with the boat heeled over 20-30 degrees the whole time. No one liked it. We got the occasional “wash down” with salt water – kinda like going through a salt water car wash for a second – glad to have a complete enclosure around the cockpit. We were happy to get to the Berry Islands, to Bullocks Harbor at Great Harbor Cay.

We anchored in the most beautiful water, aqua green and clear. We can see the bottom of the ocean, 12 feet below, from our cockpit. It was really strange to watch the anchor actually hit the bottom and then watch the chain payout for 100 feet. Just before dark, a fishing boat arrived.

We are anchored just outside of the government dock at the settlement of Bullocks Harbor. The harbor entrance to the marina is on the other side of our anchorage.
After recuperating for a day and just enjoying the beautiful scenery, we decided to take the day Monday and explore. First, we got the dinghy down –our first dingy ride in the Bahamas! Yes, that’s Luke decked out in his sun hat!

The shore here is interesting, definitely coral. It’s cut out from the tidal range.

We’re off to a beautiful beach, the only one in the area. We HAD to go explore it. It was an easy dinghy ride over to the shallow waters of the beach. Our own paradise ---- no footprints on this little bit of tropical heaven but our own!

I did some shelling, loving my trudge in the warm water. Here are my 2 favorite shells, a perfect conch and a larger, broken one that shows the inside of the shell.

Luke explored the island and found a great place to sit and be a Beach Mon.

After our beach combing, we went over to the marina area, where 2 boats that are loosely traveling with us are staying. I love the little welcome sign. And look at that entrance --- it’s very narrow 80 ft wide, 8 ft deep. OK for us, but definitely one of the more narrow entrances we’ve ever had.

The marina is cute with a few small condos, brightly painted slips, and one motor yacht that’s so darn large we have no idea how it got into the marina, much less into her slip…. And how’s she going to get out? That’s going to be some tricky maneuvering.
We had a nice time in Bullocks Harbor. Town is about 2 miles away, so we decided to take the walk. We got as far as the condos and a nice guy from FL picked us up, took us to the local grocery store, and back to the marina. Prices aren’t awful, but are sort of “convenience store” priced. No fresh veggies, though, except bananas and potatoes. And no bread. BUT --- the caretaker at the marina has a wife who bakes bread to sell to the tourists. We’ve got a couple of wheat loaves on order, to be picked up fresh on Wednesday. (he came through! yum!)
After our town adventure, we visited with our friends Deb & Laurence plus the folks from another boat, Craig and Jane. All Canadians… eh?

On Tuesday, I discovered the little problem of bringing in fresh seashells. I put a group of the smallest ones in a bowl behind our settee. In the morning, I discovered something that looked vaguely like snail tracks on the sofa…. Yulp, one little guy was missing. We found him on the window curtain. He’s back in the ocean now.

Tuesday afternoon we met Deb and Laurence and Jane and Craig (and their daughter, son-in-law, and grandson) back on the beach. It was beautiful – shorts!!! We did lots of beach combing, sunning, and just enjoying ourselves in the warm weather and beautiful beach.

We saw the most wonderful starfish – he was at least 12 inches across, probably more.

Laurence discovered a crab stranded near a small tidal pool during low tide. This is one big crab, about 6-7 inches across. As soon as Laurence put him back into the tidal pool, he began pushing water out through his mouth, circulating water. Luke thinks it's a "Mitten" crab, an invasive species -- haven't found him in the local marine life guide books.

We all gathered at our boat for drinks and snacks until sundown.
Remember the fishing boat? There are 3 now out here now. They fish for anything; red snapper, lobster, conch, etc. A small boat of the fishermen came by our boat this afternoon, selling fresh conch. Well, we “bit” and bought 3 of them, but only after they offered to “get" the conch for us and “skin” it. They deftly knocked a hole in the conch shell, extracted the conch, skinned it (yuck) washed it, the skinner ate one stringy translucent thinghy from each conch as he was cleaning it, and gave us 3 cleaned conchs in a plastic bag. Much bigger than I anticipated. I took the shells, too, as they are beautiful. Not sure where I’ll put them, but that is tomorrow’s problem. Then I got cooking directions, including the most important step, “bruising” the conch. Basically, it’s like tenderizing chicken or meat with a hammer or beer bottle. Anyway, Craig brought over a book of conch recipes and I tried making a conch soup, sort of a vegetable soup with conch (think of vegetable soup with chicken in it….) Luke did the bruising - Luke’s reaction “interesting”. I don’t think we’re big conch fans…

Wednesday, Feb. 11, we moved Latitudes to the Great Harbour Marina for the night. Everybody got a good bath – Latitudes (still salt encrusted from our crossing), laundry, and us. We got together again with the other boaters for a dinner at Jane & Craig’s boat.

We finally saw manatees!!! A family lives at the marina. There’s mom and her baby.

There’s also a larger female, probably grandmom. The other boaters saw them before we moved to the marina. They said mom was nursing the baby, with her big flipper cuddling him up to her.
We left early the morning of Thursday, Feb. 12, to start making our way to New Providence Island, where Nassau is. We aren’t going to Nassau, but using the west side of the island as a stopping point for a night en route to the Exumas. We’ll have to make one more stop along the route to the Exumas. Here we are, leaving that narrow entrance from Great Harbor Cay Marina.

The cruise ships use the north end of the Berry Islands to give their passengers a opportunity to experience the “out islands”. Here’s the mother ship ….

And here is the “out island”, made up cute and colorful and full of little local shops.
Now, here is the REAL out island side of the Berries. We are anchored for the night in a little cut between White Cay and Devil Cay. Pristine beaches and beautiful blue water and no one else.

We dropped the dinghy, watching the bottom of the water 15 feet down, crystal clear. Look at this ! Finally! A bathing suit and straw hat and beach combing! We feel like we’ve finally made it to the tropics.

We also found fossils on the beach, embedded in the coral. Lots and lots of them. We were so excited, tried to knock one out for a souvenir, but couldn't, they are rock hard, as one would expect of fossils. They look like Trilobites, except for the "tri" part. THEN, we got a "reef creatures" book, and the darn things are live! They are Fuzzy Chitons. Not very fuzzy....

Friday, Feb 13, we left with intentions of stopping in New Providence Island, but the weather was so good, we decided to go as far as we could towards the Exumas. The Grand Banks of the Bahamas are here – this is water that is only 9- 12 feet deep for over 100 miles north and south, 50 miles east and west. It is also filled with coral formations, so you have to be sure to watch for changes in water color that would indicate coral. Some of the coral is quite big and would do major damage to the boat if we ran over it. Here’s Luke, on coral watch.

The area is so shallow that you can just drop your anchor when you’re ready to quit for the night. With the importance of visual navigation, no boats go out after dark. So --- we went for 9 ½ hours, finally stopping along the area where the White Banks and the Yellow Banks near each other. This was the best yet! The water is SO crystal clear and you can easily see the bottom below. We motored slowly, watching the bottom go by, seeing starfish, small coral reefs, and fish. Suddenly Luke spotted a porpoise. These guys are BIG, averaging 7-14 feet. He swam around for a while, and then came in front of the boat. He slowly swam along the side of the boat, in perfect view in the clear water, and watched us curiously as he swam by. He was beautiful.

As the sun got lower, we had the shadow of Latitudes flying formation with us, on the bottom, 10- to 15 ft down – really cool.

Here we are at anchor – can you believe you’re looking through 12 ft of water? – at least 15 miles from the nearest land. This works only when it’s relatively calm – it was.

We were also treated to a gorgeous sunset.

On Saturday, Feb 14, we sailed the last 20 miles to the chain of islands called the Exumas. Our anchorage for the night was Allen Cay, best known for the iguanas who live there. No one else does….The cay is mostly short palm trees and undergrowth, with a couple of beach areas. This is where the iguanas hang out, waiting for the tourists. They certainly aren’t afraid of us. In fact, it was a little unnerving to step out of the dinghy and have a few of them rush towards me. No doubt they’ve been fed treats by the boaters. These are big boys, some at least 3 feet long.

This well fed rascal is resting like most of them do --- tummy on the warm sand.

Think this guy had enough of Luke taking his picture?

We took the dinghy over to another beach area (more iguanas…) and lots of live Queen Conchs in the water. I found this beautiful conch shell.

Then I turned it over….little eyes peeping at me...I may never eat conch again….

I can’t say enough about warm sun, water, and sand in mid-February.

Back to the boat, ready for another beautiful day in Paradise. Now, if there just weren’t another 16 boats beside us at this anchorage…. Oh well, I can’t complain!


We left Allen's Cay mid afternoon on Sunday, Feb. 15, and went the whopping 5 miles or so to Highbourne Cay. That's 3 miles straight away from the the cay to avoid coral heads, 5 miles down the banks, and 3 miles straight back into the Highborne Cay. We spent a quiet night at anchor, and then came into the Highborne Cay marina for Monday night, Feb. 16. The wind is supposed to kick up to about 25 knots during the night, plus we wanted to get internet and catch up. Everything costs here. The marina isn't outrageously expenive, just expensive. But, water is $0.50/gallon. Showers are $4 each, with an automatic 5 minute limit. Laundry is $10/load (no, no laundry here!). Trash (if you aren't staying at the marina) is $5 per bag, 2 bag maximum of $5, then $25/bag. Yes, $25. Electricity is $0.45/kilowatt (no, no electricity for us). Groceries are $1.85/apple, $6.50/loaf of bread, $2.90/pound of bananas, $9/box of cereal. It's a private island, so they've gotcha. Good thing we provisioned before we left FL. But we still need/want some fresh fruit and bread, so we'll have to drop a little here for some of that.
I'm not complaining ---- one final picture to end this very long blog.

That would be Luke -- about 77 degree water, but hey -- in this kind of setting -- have to do it!