Day 195, Friday Jan. 3rd 2014

Day 195, Friday Jan. 3^rd 2014

Julie paying close attention as we come into the harbour

Today we are heading to Wardrick Wells which is the Exuma Land and Sea Park.  It is only about 20 miles away so should be a fairly short sail.  We get underway early so we will have time to enjoy the Park.  The wind again is on the nose, making for an uncomfortable ride.   We are able to so some sailing however and soon we are entering the narrow channel and finding a mooring ball.  Of course we are arriving between 12 and 1:00 and there is no one manning the radio in order to assign our mooring ball.   A last ditch effort on the radio and we are provided some instructions.  There are lots of shifting sand areas so we move about slowly in the area.  Kevin attempts to grab the mooring ball and misses and Dawson quickly attempts a boat hook grab and his new Oakley sunglasses from Kevin splash into the water.  Uh oh.  We moor and Kevin and Casey don the snorkel gear and after about 15 minutes come up with the eyewear.  Yeah!  Kevin was always a fantastic diver.  It is about 15 feet deep here with the tide is coming in.  

Casey ensuring she uses sunblock

We are almost in a trench about 100 feet wide with sandbanks only about a foot deep bordering the trench at low tide.  We all swim over to the trench which is a close swim but the rip tide is moving us downstream toward the ocean so we swim at an angle adding another 100 feet to the swim.  We walk along the shallow bank which is about up to our knees.  There is not a lot of wildlife but a few shells.  We think we can make it over to the park office, but change our mind as we would have to swim around swim around a peninsula, so we head back to the boat.  The young adults choose to stay with the mothership, while we older adults dinghy over to the office to check in and explore. 

Moored in trench

Evening dominos

The office is quite unique.  It is a non profit that runs the park and we choose to join the “trust”.  A bit more money than just taking a mooring but it goes to a good cause.  We get the low down on snorkelling and hiking and set off on a short hike up to the blow holes and lookout.  We have to walk across a stream which is only ankle height at low tide which is about now.  The hike is only about 40 minutes and offers a nice view.  The blow holes are inactive now so we will have to come back when the tide is up.  Snorkelling is on tomorrow’s agenda as it can only be done at slack tide which occurs when the tide is changing from coming in to going out and visa versa.  We decide we will do the morning slack which is at about 9:30 and possibly do the 4:00 slack tide also.  We are looking forward to a play day with no movement of the boat.

We are back at the boat for sundown, and enjoy an evening of games.

Cheers

Julie and Dawson