Warderick Wells, Exumas,
Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Sat 15 Dec 2012 17:43
| Can we beat last nights anchorage? We headed south to the Exuma National Park to find out. This is based in Warderick Wells, an island which has slowly been reclaimed from the sea. The main attraction here, if you can call it that, is Boo Boo Hill, so named after the ghosts that supposedly haunt it. A ship was wrecked off the island several years ago and there were no survivors, the ghosts of those on board are said to haunt the island and can be heard to sing hymns at full moon! It is a tradition among sailors here to leave a piece of driftwood with your boat name written on at the top of Boo Boo Hill. As this is part of the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, there is no anchoring allowed, just mooring balls. Every morning at 9am they open the radio channel for boats to book in - it is quite a scrum to get through and book! As we are one of the larger and deeper boats in the area, we were given a mooring just inside the cut - well, I can't tell you how much we rolled! We had two days and nights of constant surging tides through the cut, add to this a strong wind blowing the opposite way to the tide and you can imagine how uncomfortable it was, things were constantly sliding around and sleeping was tricky to say the least. The first afternoon, we climbed the trail to Boo Boo Hill and walked back the long way round the island. There are lots of gorgeous beaches scattered everywhere, and we waited for some action from the blow holes, but the tide wasn't right, sometimes they can be spectacular - or so I am told! The next day, Saturday, we went to the beach in the afternoon. John and Stuart had been hard at work in the morning on Brizo, changing some anodes and generally checking things over. The weather cooled and clouded over for a short period over lunch and then brightened again. There was a beach called Escape Beach at the far end of the island, which should have ben nice and sheltered. When we arrived it was fabulous - the whole lagoon area was full of great little beaches and deserted - perfect, we could all have had our own private beach! A couple of hours of hard sunbathing was called for, and we lazed the afternoon away quite happily. Every Saturday night on Warderick Wells, the cruisers get together on the beach for very informal, BYO sundowners. We met a lot of people who had been cruising the islands for a while who gave us loads of tips on places to visit. It turns out that we have been creating quite a stir in the anchorages with our two identical boats - everyone had seen us arrive, and we had to come the deep water way, it was something of an entrance with us both rolling like crazy through the surf! Most of the other cruisers said there was no way they would have wanted to be in our shoes! |