Oyster Cay-Waderwick Wells-Cay-B oo Boo Hill–Coral reefs and big barracuda

Spectra
Paul & Norma Russell
Mon 23 Mar 2015 18:58

Oyster Cay-Waderwick Wells-Cay-Boo Boo Hill–Coral reefs and big barracuda

24:22.9N 76:37.9W

23rd March 2015

7321 Miles from Ramsgate by log.

 

            After Oyster Cay it was a short day sail back down to meet up with Right Turn in Waderwick Wells Cay which also happens to be the headquarters of the Exuma Park authority. The only highlight of the journey, apart from Norma producing the masterpiece below,

 

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Norma’s painting of Mindello for Tony is finally completed.

 

was when we were making our final approach to the cay we crossed a 5 meter contour line on our plotter and promptly ran aground. Luckily enough we saw the depth reducing rapidly and had managed to slow down to about half a knot before we started to gently tap the bottom. A quick U turn followed after which we headed further out to sea and then tried again,  this time as we came abeam of the Cays entrance we just touched bottom at the end of the sand bar, Norma at the front of the boat was standing over clear deep water while at the back we were again just tapping the bottom. This time with less than a boats length to negotiate I gave the throttle a quick stab and Spectra slid over the sand into deep water, phew.     

            No sooner had we dropped our anchor than we were joined by a very large Barracuda which was actually longer than our dinghy is wide,  who seemed to enjoy hanging around the boat. When Mike and Kate came over for sundowners they commented that he had been hanging around them the day before so that rather discouraged me from diving in and checking the anchor.

 

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Our resident Barracuda

 

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When we fed the Barracuda this Ramora who has been attached to the hull for a few days now nipped out and stole the food.

 

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Billy the Barracuda rises up to grab a bit of fish, what a lovely smile it has!

 

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A small ray and his little friend swimming under Spectra the water is 5 meters deep here.

 

The next morning we jumped aboard the Right Turn taxi and went over to the park HQ in order to put our driftwood carvings on Boo Boo Hill. This is a tradition that is supposed to ensure that you get good winds and calm seas in the future and so who are we to buck the system I say? We had picked up the driftwood from the pontoon in Puerto Rico and had both been secretly carving away over the last couple of weeks, see the pics below. Right Turn went for the routed and drilled effect while we went for 3D in relief.

 

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Nothing to add, the sign covers it all really

 

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A very big skeleton

 

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A curly tailed lizard

 

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And a not so curly tailed lizard

 

At the park HQ they have mounted the huge skeleton of a Sperm whale that was washed ashore several years ago which apparently was killed by consuming plastic waste, which is a real shame that such a large beast could be laid low by our waste plastic bags. The walk up to Boo Boo Hill passed the musical rocks which you can play tunes on by hitting with a stick and so of course we hit them with a stick and I can reliably report that you can indeed play a tune. We then waded across a mangrove swamp and finally visited the blow holes before reaching the summit. The blow holes are small fissures in the rock through which air rushes as the ocean swell enters caves several hundred feet below. It really is a strong rush of air which moans as it shoots out, quite spooky on a silent night I would have thought. Boo Boo hill itself is quite interesting purely for the fact of it being a part of an on going process with passing cruisers adding to the pile as each year goes by. We placed our named bits of wood on the huge pile alongside all of those others, each of which represent someone’s dreams made reality.

 

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Each rock has the note that it nearly plays painted on it.

 

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The blow holes and you would have a silly _expression_ as well if you had that kind of draught up your Khyber Pass.

 

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Norma getting ready for take off

 

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Mike and Kate pointing at the Right Turn sign which rather ironically is bottom left.

 

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Spectra in 3D. Norma drew it out and I snapped a whole lot of jig saw blades cutting it.

 

Mike and Kate headed off up to Nassau later that day leaving Norma and myself alone to do some more exploring. We took the dinghy for a ride away from our resident Barracuda and had a really enjoyable day just relaxing and motoring around. Among other local beaches we visited Loyalist beach and several coral heads that we passed along the way, see pics.

 

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Another beach with a resident dangerous Owl apparently?????

 

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Loyalist beach and the only footprints are ours.

 

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This was taken with an I-phone just leaning over the side of the dinghy

 

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More fish from the dinghy

 

That’s it for this one more of a photo album than a blog I hope you enjoyed it…. Next we go back to Nassau to stock up for the trip to Bimini and Florida.

 

 

 

PS: we are still looking for some extra crew to come back across the Atlantic at the beginning of June.

Three legs of about 2 weeks each,  each leg should take 7 to 10 days so allow 2 weeks to include changeovers and shore time. The legs are:

Norfolk Virginia to Bermuda,

Bermuda to the Azores,

Azores to Cork

….anyone interested in all or part? Please drop us a line.

 

Spectra {CHANGE TO AT} mailasail {DOT} com

 

No attachment or pics please as this is a very low bandwidth satellite link and costs a small fortune per minute for downloads and they block up my weather reports.

 

If you want to send normal email pics attachment etc.

Paul {DOT} russell732 {CHANGE TO AT} hotmail {DOT} co {DOT} uk and I will pick it up when I am on WiFi