We had planned on going to Norman’s Cay to see the plane wreck, but instead we changed our plans and headed straight to the Exumas Land and Sea Park. That’s been a theme lately, I can’t think of a single plan we’ve planned and actually executed, the weather is such a huge factor in every move we make in the Exumas.

2.20 – Thursday

When we arrived at Warderick Wells, the first thing we did was dinghy in to pay for our mooring ball, and who should we see but our good friends on Consort! As Heather put it, “we saw a Walker Bay dinghy with a really pale person in it, so we knew it was you!” We moved to the same mooring field they are in and ended up on the ball right next to them! It’s a good thing there are mooring balls here, the channel is so narrow that anchoring would be almost impossible. It’s absolutely gorgeous, probably the prettiest place we’ve ever stayed.

We’re in the Exumas Land and Sea Park, a no-take preserve (no fishing, conching, lobstering or shelling) located in a 40-mile stretch of the Exumas islands. The HQ is Warderick Wells, which is essentially an eco-resort for boats. There are a huge range of activities from snorkeling to hiking here, with an abundance of trails.

2.21 – Friday

We started out with a hike to get the lay of the land. As we hiked back, we walked out towards Hobbes on a sandbar that appeared at low tide. We realized some very dark clouds had rolled in! Since the boat was opened up, we needed to close the hatches before it rained – should we swim the few feet back to the boat or did we have time to hike back to the dinghy? We opted to hike. Halfway back the sky opened up and we got wet. Back at the boat…we realized neither of us had ever opened the hatches, despite both talking about doing so. You’d think we’d learn our lesson right then and there, but twice more it started raining while we were off the boat, and our hatches actually were open then!

There is a resident nurse shark here, she came up behind our boat and swam in place for a while, I assume she’s used to being fed. She stayed for so long that we got all the cameras out. Here she is, with our 10-ft dinghy for scale.

Brave Kyle put his hands in the water near her and got some epic shots. He even still has all his digits!

Look at her goofy face. Nurse sharks skim the bottom of the ocean floor, sucking up small fish and crustaceans. They can generate enough suction force to suck a conch right out of its shell!

The wind picked up and the anchorage started to get a little choppy, but not enough to keep us from heading over to Consort for a delicious dinner. Being social is always a good morale boost for us!

2.22 – Saturday

However, the next morning Kyle got up early to head in and do a trail run, and by then it was quite choppy. I was at the boat, watching the dinghy bash against the rocks, debating whether to call Consort and ask them to help me put it back up on the beach. It literally never occurred to me to call Kyle, even though we made sure we each had radios tuned in to the same VHF channel! In the end he came back to the boat before I could make a decision. The dinghy was fine, but completely swamped, so while though he had an enjoyable run it put us both in a foul mood for the rest of the day.

Despite being grumpy, we put on our happy faces for the cruisers potluck that afternoon. Unfortunately, I heard “potluck” and brought a quinoa salad. Everyone else brought finger food (d’oh) and so we had salad for a few days after that! It was interesting to meet a bunch of other cruisers, but the weather chased everyone back to their boats early. The wind was steadily increasing. I don’t have any photos of the gathering, but right off that beach there are always turtles, so have a turtle photo instead!

That evening, we were watching a movie and still had our radio on and heard some chatter about a mooring breaking loose. What?! These are new moorings and should be super secure and WHAT?! We started monitoring all the regular channels (16 and 09, the park channel) and sure enough, a boat two balls down from us had broken loose. They drifted past two other boats, but they got an anchor down before they hit another boat or hit bottom. Incredible! The park helped get them on another mooring ball. It was bad enough trying to pick up a ball when we came in, with the current and wind. I can’t imagine trying to do it in the dark with 30 kts of wind!

Long story short, we didn’t really sleep well that night. We’ve never set an anchor alarm before, but there’s a first time for everything!

2.23 – Sunday

Since the weather has been crappy we haven’t gotten off the boat as much, and I’m going a little crazy, so I demanded we do something! Kyle and I headed in for a hike, Kyle wanted to show me the Causeway Trail that he’d run. When he got to the Causeway Bridge he had me go on ahead so he could take photos.

While I was on the bridge, I saw something crazy in the tide pool in front of me. It looked like a snake or an eel. We got up close and it was a…

An octopus! In the wild! An octopus has been on my short list of animals-I-really-want-to-see-but-will-probably-never-find-in-the-wild. And here was one in a foot or two of clear water, just moving around and putting on a show.

It was insane. She changed colors, textures, shape. It was like watching a non-Newtonian fluid.

First she was blue, then orange.

First she was all legs, then suddenly she turned into a tent!

And then I made the fatal mistake. I put the underwater camera in the water about a foot away from her. She tucked into the rocks and didn’t come back out!

The whole thing was incredible and I’m still riding that octopus high. We spent about twenty minutes watching her roam around the shallow water.

I was going to try to fit Warderick Wells all into one blog post, but we were there for an entire week and we saw so much! Click on over to the next post to read about charter boat antics and snorkeling!