I took so many photos that I decided to split our week in Warderick Wells into two posts. It seems terribly excessive, but they’re my memories and this is how I want to remember them – in fine detail!

2.24 – Monday

Pretty much all the other boats left this morning, everyone is heading to Staniel Cay. After the frustration of our last couple trips, we’ve committed to only moving when the wind is good, and it’s not good for a move south today so we’re a little confused about why so many people are going.

Since everyone left, the mooring field filled in this afternoon and it was almost all charter boats. That means entertainment! Here is my current list of charter boat antics:

• Ran aground at the entrance. This is pretty standard, it’s a narrow channel and fortunately there’s soft sand all around so running aground isn’t a big deal.
• A boat came in and seemed to be using full reverse way too often. You never want to see a boat sideways in this channel.
• A charter cat came in after hours and almost picked up a mooring that’s meant for dinghies at the coral garden. It’s pretty deep there so hopefully they didn’t damage any coral.
• All the boats coming in seem to have 12+ people aboard, so dinghies are so full of people that they’re barely above water.
• We saw an empty dinghy go floating by, headed out to sea. Kyle started putting ours in the water but our neighbor beat us to the rescue.
• Someone beached their center console dinghy (aka a heavy boat) in the flats at high tide. The tide fell, and they were left high and dry. We were at the top of Boo Boo Hill and had a clear view of them trying to pull it back towards the water for about half an hour. It looked miserable.
• All the dinghies seem to run very close to the boats. One of them ran over our mooring ball. Way too close.
• One charter catamaran came into the mooring field and as they passed us, they called over and asked if I could call the park and request a mooring ball for them since their radio wasn’t working. I could practically hear Sherry’s eyeroll when I radioed in.

Slightly related, here’s an example of narrow the channel is and how close the boats have to pass by us to get to their mooring ball!

As for us, we made plans to head over to the snorkel garden today. Just this morning we saw the tiny shark in the shallows (about 3 ft), we’ve also seen that nurse shark a couple times and some really giant spotted eagle rays. There’s way too many big animals in the water here for me to feel comfortable snorkeling, so we blew up the SUP so I could snorkel without actually being in the water. Baby steps.

Instead, we got out to the coral garden and it was incredibly choppy. Kyle got in and snorkeled, I didn’t even dare untie the SUP because between the wind and the chop I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to paddle back. Kyle still took a few photos, it’s quite deep so it’s hard to get good ones. I realized Kyle had taken a photo of a lionfish – he said he never even saw it! (This is a different photo, we later got a better pic of the lionfish!)

Since that was a bust, we decided to dinghy over to the Causeway Bridge and paddle around in the shallows there. We faced a steep chop just to dinghy over there, and it didn’t calm down as we made it in towards the beach. So that was a bust too. We headed back to the boat.

One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that there is no cell service in the Land and Sea Park. We are completely off grid. The only exception to that is the highest point on the island which sometimes has a little reception. I’ve been able to get out an instagram post almost every day, which has been great exercise because it’s an intense hike!

By special request, I have drawn a real-life accurate depiction of us hauling everything up the hill in pursuit of internet. Sometimes it do be like that.

The other reason people go to the top of Boo Boo Hill is to leave a piece of driftwood with their boat name on it! I painted ours ahead of time so we could add it to the pile!

Our sign is definitely decorated in a much more planned out, meticulous manner, which I’m only bringing up because that has been true of most of our travels so far. I have pages of notes about the anchorages in the Exumas, what kind of protection they have and what we can see and do while we’re there. I have no idea how most people are planning their next passage and anchorage, but I can tell you it’s not nearly as detailed as how I do it. It’s just funny that something so small is still so representative of who we are and how we do things.

2.25 – Tuesday

I was a little stircrazy again this morning, I really wanted to get off the boat. Kyle suggested we take the SUP around the sandbar near the boat. We tried it, but the wind and current are strong and make it too difficult to enjoy.

Okay, plan B. We’ll take the dinghy over to the far mooring field and land at Rendezvous Beach and see the ruins. It was a rough ride out, but it was calm on the beach so that was fine. We beached it and saw the sign: we were at Beryl’s Beach. No problem, we can follow the trail and make it to the ruins from here. Nope, the “trail” was a near-vertical climb up some rocks. We didn’t have the proper footwear for that kind of challenge.

No big deal, we’ll hop back in the dinghy and go back to Rendezvous Beach. We beached it and before we even started to set an anchor we could see this was a bad idea. The huge swell had already sent a couple waves over the dinghy transom, if we left it here it would be completely swamped by the time we got back.

Alright, new plan. We’re nothing if not adaptable, right? Let’s go check out the coral garden and see if it’s calmer today. It’s definitely not, don’t know why we thought it would be, that plan was doomed to failure from the start.

Fine. Back to the boat.

The wind switched around a little that afternoon and I kept using the binoculars to see if the snorkel garden was calming down at all. I am pretty sure it wasn’t, I was just seeing what I wanted to see, but snorkeling was the last thing that I really wanted to do here so I was ready to make it happen through sheer willpower.

We tied up at the mooring ball and Kyle hopped in. It was pretty choppy, but I was determined. I didn’t even bring the SUP this time, but I did have my inner tube. I hopped in the water like a boss and tested out my ability to swim against the current. Not bad! I snorkeled for a while but I wasn’t using my fins and I had to kick pretty hard. I pulled myself back into the dinghy for a break. It was time to try out fins. I put them on and jumped back into the water. Much easier! We only snorkeled for a short time because the choppy waves made it difficult, but I’m still counting this as a win!

We saw a pretty good variety of fish! Kyle got a fantastic shot of this French angelfish and pipe coral!

This is a new variety for us: there are two spottail butterflyfish in this photo!

Kyle saw a big stingray swimming through the coral, usually they just hang out on the bottom like this.

Bolstered by the success of snorkeling even in rough conditions, we headed back to the boat for a celebratory beer and dinner. Days like this are exhausting, I took a book to bed at 8pm with lofty expectations but I was falling asleep by page 20.

2.26 – Wednesday

We made our final trek up to Internet Mountain and got one last weather forecast. It looked almost sailable today, but tomorrow the wind truly turns and we should have some good weather to head south.

We got chores done today and got the boat prepped for passage tomorrow. This afternoon was wildly obnoxious, on the rising tide the boat keeps floating over the mooring ball, straining against it, pulling it underneath one hull until it pops up in between the hulls (making a ton of noise). We’re constantly turning and getting jerked as the mooring line tightens. This happens at night as well, which is a jarring way to wake up!

Not much to report today, we’re wrapping up our time in Warderick Wells and we’re very ready to move on!