EXUMA CAYS LAND AND SEA PARK - SPECIAL EDITION

TRIP FACTS AS OF:  February 5, 2011

Days gone from VA:         110
Days in Bahamas:               49
Miles Traveled:           1,527.9
Things Overboard:       Not one thing!!!

February 2 through February 5, 2011:   We left Cape Eleuthrea on Wednesday headed for the EXUMAS!!!   David was able to check off one more thing on his "to do list" so all is well.  We got into the Park around 3 in the afternoon and dinghy'd over to the Park Ranger's office to sign in, pay for our mooring ball, $20 a night and pay for internet at $10 a night.  We heard boaters calling on their VHF radios to get on the waiting list for a mooring ball.  There are a grand total of 54 mooring balls spread out between the North Field, Emerald Rock field, where we were, and the South Field. 

Before I goosh about how beautiful this place is let me give you some history. The Bahamas National Trust, a non-governmential organization, was created by the Bahamian Parliament in 1959 to manage their park system.  Parliament also set aside 176 square miles for the ECLSP to protect marine and land animals in the Park.  The park is 22 miles long and extends out 4 miles on either side of the cays and includes 15 islands and many tiny cays.  It is a NO TAKE zone so you can't pick up the conch you see in the water or go fishing.  Their motto is:  TAKE ONLY PICTURES AND MEMORIES, LEAVE ONLY FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND.   

If you've ever seen pictures of the park you usually see the North Mooring field , which is the most famous. 
For those of you who haven't it's a channel in a cresent shaped channel with a hugh sand bar in the middle that gets dry when the tide goes out.  Here you go.... enjoy...

                                                  North Mooring Field - ECLSP - low tide

One of the famous spots at the park is BOO BOO HILL.  There are two thoughts on how the hill got it's name.  The first is from locals who say that settlers shipwrecked on the island and their spirits haunt the cay.  The more scientific explanation is that after centuries of  storms, rain and wind erosion, a series of BLOW HOLES formed and when the tide and wind are just right the holes produce a "booooo"ing sound.  I like the locals version myself.  Back to the hike.  To get to the top of the hill you cross over BANSHEE CREEK.
Banshee is home to a mangrove nursery and at low tide you can see what the mangroves root system looks like.  They survive in salt water and no water and are pretty amazing to see. 



Mangrove roots at low tide.

While we were anchored in Spanish Wells we saw what looked like pieces of grass bobbing in the water.  They turned out to be mangrove seed pods waiting for the tide to drop so they could plant themselves in the soft sand like this:


Mangrove nursery..........

Once we hiked to the top of the hill we found the collection of "natural" (no plastic ANYTHING) name plates left by people.  Most of the nameplates were made of wood inscribed with names, dates and boat names.   We picked up a piece of bamboo driftwood and will etch our info on it and hike back up to the top of the hill when we head north later this month.  

World Famouse BOO BOO HILL ........

The tide/winds weren't right for us to hear BOO BOO so we hiked over to the beach.  The trails on the island don't have a nice boardwalk for  you to follow.  Rangers have hacked the trial through small palms and other vegitation that have grown up through the limestone bedrock.  Someone discovered the limestone even makes "music".  We stopped and David picked up a small piece of limestone and tapped on 3 big pieces of rock.....each piece did have a different "sound" to it...




"Musical Rocks"..look at the texture and that's what we walked on..really sharp & rough

 Limestone is sharp and jagged from being worn by all the years of rain and storms. Some of the limestone has been worn down so deep that when the Spanish came to the Bahamas they would find these deep wells and gather drinking water.

Imagine drinking  from this????

Walking around the beaches you could see conch in the water just scooting alone.  One of the statistics on conch show that the conch concentrations are 31 times higher than outside the park  Which is great since it means there will be conch for future generations.  There are similar statistics for crawfish (lobster) and Grouper.  The park serves as a nursery of sorts keeping areas open to recreational and commercial harvesting fully stocked.  Here's what a baby conch looks like "scooting" ...look to the left and you can see the trail it leaves....

Baby conch - they can grow to about 12"..this one was about 5".

We ended up hiking 3 trails the second day we were here - The Davis Plantation Trail, the Loyalist Beach Trail and the Alive Beach Trail.  While we on the Loyalist Trail we counted 10 of those wells that had water in them.   After reading about the Bahamas I imagine the Davis Plantation was started by an American Loyalists who were not ready for democracy.  Plantation owners from the South came down, built homes and tried to duplicate what they had in America - to no avail.  After seeing the limestone and land they came to you can understand how difficult it was for them.

At the end of our last hike we were headed back to the beach and came to an opening and this is what we saw......

That's US.....in the Emearld Rock Mooring Field

We left the park on Saturday, the 5th, headed for Staniel Cay and the SUPER BOWL game.  We'll head back to the park on our way North later this month and finish hiking the rest of the trails and just enjoying the beauty.  Looking down at the water and seeing two Horse-Eyed Jacks swimming around the swim step was amazing and apparently isn't the best the park has to offer.  We'll call ahead a couple days so we can get a mooring ball in the North Field since we've talked to people who say that fish and sharks come through there a lot. 

Hope you enjoyed our visit in the ECLSP.   We took their motto to heart - we took tons of pictures and have great memories and only left ....

More later.... Dave and Peg

Hatchet Bay to Governor's Harbour to Cape Eleuthrea

TRIP FACTS AS OF:  February 1, 2011

Days gone from Virginia:   106
Days in Bahamas:               45
Miles traveled:               1,473
No more toilet stories!!
Things overboard:           Nothing this trip.
Trip Firsts:  A FULL day with the sails up!!!  In all the days we've been gone this was the first real sailing day.

January 27 through February 1, 2011:  We left Hatchet Bay on Jan. 27 headed for Governor's Harbour.  Hatchet Bay is on the outside of this cut.  We really grabbed a mooring ball in Hatchet POND...big pond but well protected.  The cut getting is was blasted away as you can see by the picture.  It's pretty amazing to see tankers come into this narrow cut.

Early in the morning before we took off I was in the cockpit and heard what I thought was a bird diving into the water...as I turned around I saw a MANTA RAY about 3' across jump twice.  Amazing site.   We left Hatchet early in the morning and we anxious to get to Governor's Harbour because our mail was waiting for us.  Take a look at what $105 DHL delivery looks like...then look at what's next to it.  Yep, it's a hard pill to swallow but the picture after that says it all.....look at the smile on David's face.  We got Christmas cards that were really appreciated.





                                               $105.00 DHL package.......it was worth it because it made David.....

                                                                    S M I L E ! ! ! !
Mooring ball markers are a strange breed down here.  We've seen floats, styrofoam balls and the like but this takes the cake...

                  Hummmm....U. S. Coast Guard Approved V-8 Juice Buoy ..... what can I say?

After we get the boat squared away we try to get into town to walk as much as we can.  It's great to stretch our legs and this time we talked to the DHL lady and she told us where to get fresh fish, who to rent a car from and where to eat!!  We ended up walking around and found the locals selling fish....talk about fresh..
Take a look at this.  His crawfish (lobster to us - crawfish to Bahamians) ranged in price from $10 for the small, $20 for medium and $25 for the large....needless to say we have a delicious dinner.

                              Dinner anyone?  They clean everything right in front of you....

                                                Governor's Harbour looking to the west.

                                          This is Cupid's Cay ... on the east side of the Harbour.

Looking north at the only boat in the Harbour...ours.

We also saw these 2 little kids eating ice cream getting ready to go to Junkanoo.....they were really sweet.  One thing about Bahamians, they are all smiling, happy and so polite.

We spent the next few days doing projects we needed to catch up with including servicing the watermaker.
Our fresh water maker costs over $6,000 but was brought to a halt by a simple $2.00 "O" ring.
After spending all day working on it David finally got it going so we are back to making fresh water.  Thank goodness because hauling jerry jugs from the beach is awful.

Yesterday, Jan. 31, we rented a car and drove the entire length of Eleuthera.  We went up north to see the GLASS WINDOW and PREACHERS CAVE then headed all the way south to Rock Sound.  We only missed 30 miles of the 110 mile long island.  Of course, there are some spectacular beaches and sites to share with you but dumby here forgot my camera.  So you'll have to suffer through my descriptions:
Glass Window is a bridge that was literally moved 7' to the west by a rouge wave that broke it lose from its foundations.  It's a awesome testament to the fury of Mother Nature.  Unfortunately, it cut the island in half until it could be repaired.  Preacher's Cave on on the beach opposite the Devil's Backbone in Northern Eleuthera.  Earlier I had described about the first settlers on Eleuthera who got shipwrecked here back in the 1800's.  I was mistaken...it was in the early 1640's.  Survivors climbed up the bank and found a cave where they survived the storm.  The cave is about 100' across and about 200' deep.  They settled there and also built an alter for the church services. 

One of the really big highlights of the trip (for me, anyway) was being able to pick up my fresh, clean, folded laundry from a wonderful little old lady in town.  She did 1 load of whites, 2 loads of darks and towels for $19.00.   Amazing!!  I wish we could have left her $100 dollars after seeing the state of her house.  She smiled the entire time. 

Now I will be honest with everyone.  I also had a major meltdown here.  I was ready to "be back home"...but I am home and after much calming discussion by the Captain we decided to move onto the Exumas.  This adventure, while exciting and romantic sounding, is hard work.  I've gone through missing my kids terribly, missing my friends and wanting a apt./condo or something to call home.  But we are home and were able to talk things through. 

February 1, 2011:  We got underway headed to Cape Eleuthrea Marina and Resort.  David was really happy because for the first time this entire trip he was able to sail all the way down from Governor's Harbour.  The winds were perfect and we made 6.5 to 8.5 knots the whole way. We decided to treat outselves to a marina since it's been 18 days without a real shower/hot water and a full battery charge without running the generator!!   Whoopy, hot shower tonight.  Unless you've done a lot of camping or sailing you don't know how exciting this can be.    The resort is owned by the man who also owns the Orlando Magic basketball team.  It's an eco-friendly place, very quiet with tons of fish in the "harbor", water costs .45 a gallon for water,  .65 kwh for electricity and it's $4.00 for a 5 minute shower (.50 for each extra minute).  But it's beautiful and worth every cent.   Here's what we saw when we came in...

                                  Cape Eleuthrea Marina and  Resort  entrance.....

                                                                       Condos......
Everyone is really friendly but we hope business picks up because right now it looks like there are about 6 staff for each guest.  The brochure said you would be able to see all sorts of fish and sharks in the crystal clear water.  We were also told we could buy fresh fish from the local fisherman that came in here to clean their catch.  What they didn't tell us was .......what we would see.......take a look.....

There were about 15-20 sharks under the cleaning table waiting for their dinner......we saw at least 2 bull sharks and the rest nurse sharks.

This is Luke in his boat.  He showed me how to clean conch. the easy way.  We ended up buying 9 "feet" of conch and some grouper.  Each conch has a "foot" which is the meat inside and yes, Jimmy, it almost tastes like chicken.   Grouper dinner was tasty!!!!

There are so many different  kinds of fish right here in the harbor it's amazing to watch.  While I was cleaning the conch I heard some fish who had schooled up by a foot bridge literally jump out of the water.  I didn't see what was spooking them but we did see a barracuda in the stream earlier..who knows...it was just awesome to hear.

We leave here tomorrow, Feb. 2nd, for the Exumas.  We'll be checking into Warderick Wells and the Exuma Land and Sea Park.  We're excited because they have a volunteer program you can donate time to.  We'll see what we end up doing.   Again, we're not sure about internet connections.  We had to pay for a day with one of the providers here so we're hoping there is the same thing in the Exumas.

Until then....we've been keeping up with the awful weather most of you are having and are concerned for everyone.  Please take care and be safe and warm.    More later..... Dave and Peg

PS:  If you're set up on SKYPE let us know via our email address.  We've talked to my brother, Bob, and to Stephanie and to Tom, our Hilton Head friend.  We'd love to hear from you.  Take care   =)