Day 232, Feb 9, Sunday Adventures at Lee Stocking

Day 232, Feb 9, Sunday Adventures at Lee Stocking

View from Perry's Peak looking south

Today is play day.  We are up early as usual.  This is anywhere between 5:30 and 6:30 often as we go to bed so early.  Dawson wants to get going on our hike up to Perry’s Peak before it gets too hot.  Oh what an issue.....(said tongue in cheek of course because it is the hardest winter in years back home).  We are in the kayaks by about 9:00 paddling over to the start of the hike.  Perry’s Peak is the highest point in the Exumas.  Sounds challenging, but it is only 123 feet high.  It is a beautiful view from the top though.  We can look over at the string of islands to the north and south, then out the Atlantic side and onto the banks.   We see the airstrip that is no longer used by the research centre which shut down 2 years ago.  We retrace our steps back to the beach and find the loyalist trail that crosses the island.  This trail is longer than expected and we go through varying terrain.  Finally we pop out onto the airstrip. 

Dawson at top of Perry Peak

View north from Perry's Peak

 We snoop around at the old buildings that have been abandoned.  In only a couple of years everything is falling down and rusted.  The place was not put to bed properly at all.  We find another trail and then pop out on the ocean side of the island on a beautiful beach.  Bahamas is just beautiful.  Not only the colours of the water, but there are next to no bugs or wild animals to intimidate.  Sure there are sharks, but we have bears.  We can’t say enough about the country.  There are no jellyfish, the weather is fabulous, the people are nice, and we always feel safe and secure.  We don’t lock anything ever except when we were in Nassau.

We return to our kayaks back the way we came and paddle back to our boat.  We stop and chat to “Take Two” and chat about good snorkelling spots as that is the afternoon’s expedition.

It is now almost 1:00, we have been out and about for almost 4 hours.  We have a quick lunch and pack up the dinghy ready for some snorkelling and more hiking. 

In front of abandoned airstrip

We head over to tug and barge island and the neighbours are already there snorkelling.  There are lots of fish, and colourful coral.  Not as good as in the Exumas Land and Sea park, but still very good.   After we are back in the dinghy we notice a barracuda hanging around the dinghy.  Glad I did not see it when I was snorkelling.  We dinghy off to circumnavigate Norman Cay.  There are abandoned salt ponds on the island, but we are not able to access them as the tide is not high enough.  Crossing over to Norman island there are sand bars which create some neat currents.  The sand bars are still about 3 foot deep, but some of them get exposed at low tide.  It is nice having the new outboard motor for our expedition.

Fabulous dinghy ride in calm waters

We don’t stop at Leaf Cay as the landing does not look great.  We should have stopped elsewhere but did not realize it until we had moved on.  We decide to go explore the abandoned research buildings. 

Abandoned NOAA research centre

There are about 8 buildings and due to missing doors, we are able to snoop quite easily.  It is too bad the place has shut down as there is lots of infrastructure and landscaping that has been done and it is a beautiful piece of property.  We gather up a few coconuts and then head for the mothership, but we see “Serena”, which is Barry and Wilma from Black Point so we pop in to say hello.  We also pop over to “Star Shot” which is another Caliber 40 sailboat.  We have not seen any other Caliber 40’s so anxious to chat to fellow Caliber owners.

Sunset (this is what I was looking at when on the phone with you mom!)

It has been a wonderful day on the water.  We manage to connect with Ross on the phone to congratulate him on his race in Boston.  Another personal best, which may be a new Canadian University record for the 3000m.

The sunset is particularly beautiful tonight with many pinks being reflected in the sky.  The water actually looked on fire from all the colours.

Cheers

Julie and Dawson