Exuma Land and Sea Park

Exuma Land and Sea Park, without a doubt, the lovliest of our island cruising. We stayed first in the north mooring ground on Wardwick Wells at the park head quarters. A strong current winds through the mooring, creating a blue salt river. At low tide, the white sand and shallow waters rise out of the swift moving river. Boats twist and float at odd angles, depending on the caprice of wind and tide. Ashore are myriads of trails. Signs identify the island flora. Two hundred years ago, great forests of lignum vitae, a hardwood prized by sailors for their ships, covered the islands. These were harvested and the soil blew away in the wind. Now the  sharp limestone bones of the island lay exposed. Sand anchors the hardy scrublike bushes, whose leaves are working to replenish the lost island soil.

At Wardwick Wells is Boo Boo Hill which is piled high with driftwood boat signs, painted or carved by cruisers. Above one beach sits the remains of a loyalist home, a tiny cabin of limestone with interior walls of smoothe morter. The house was tiny, but a three foot tall rock wall across the island reveals their industry. The wall was built to keep pirates away from the settlement.

Rocky blowholes near Boo Boo Hill explode with surf on windy days, and even on a calm sunny day, forced air blasts from the holes. We did a lot of snorkling in the park, first at the gorgeous mooring field, and later at Cambridge Key. The park headquarters contains an incredible coral garden, with purple fans waving in the current, yellow brain coral, giant lobsters, schools of darting neon blues and yellows, rainbow hued fish, fish of black and silver, yellow and black angel fish. More colors and kids of fish and coral than I'd ever imagined. At Cambridge Cay, we dinghied about a mile to a "sea aquarium", a rock wall of a reef, teeming with beautiful fish of colors too brilliant to be believed. Also at Cambridge Key we crossed the Conch Inlet to a cave for more snorkling. At this cay, we were joined by our second buddy boat, Atlantica, with Jose and Char Pagan. Cocktails on the beach made for a fun evening at Cambridge.

The downside of the first visit to the park was the realization that not only was our wind generator deceased, but the alternator was only charging the batteries at a rate of about 2% an hour. Our solar panels could keep us at a steady level during the day, but each night we lost 12% of our battery capacityWe decided a quick run to the marina at Staniel Kay was necessary to replenish batteries, which had dropped to an alarming 58% .