Magnificent Spotted Eagle Rays; Sarah’s Close Encounter of an Unwanted Kind; Warderick Wells - Emerald Rock Anchorage

We left Shroud Cay with 12 knots of breeze out of the east, unfurled the jib and encountered many boats heading north and south on the recommended travel lines. Around noon, we picked up mooring ball #24 in the Emerald Rock anchorage at Warderick Wells and wasted no time to snorkel the ship wreck in the north mooring field as slack tide (best time to snorkel as much current flows through Warderick Wells) was around 12:30pm. We saw a large lobster hiding in the wreck and then moved to the snorkel spot just off the Sea Park Warden’s office. once in the water we saw a large shark in the distance that swam on by apparently not too interested in us.  We also saw four spotted eagle rays each of which was about 5-6 feet across, flying by in formation. They were spectacular to see as they had the head of a dolphin, remoras on their undersides, and long tails.
We then did a short hike to Butterfly beach where the sand was so fine it was like silt affording us time to dry out and warm up from all the snorkeling. But ashore we’d worked up a sweat, so we snorkeled Emerald Rock on our way back to Juno where we saw some larger fish. Back on Juno, Sarah decided to swim off the boat in the gin clear water before dinnertime when she felt something touch her foot. Instinctively she turned to see what it was and got a scare when she saw a 6 foot long shark swimming underneath her.  Her scream alerted Sally and Harry who were on Juno and watched as Sarah swam as fast as she could back to Juno. The shark continued to make the rounds in the mooring field as the evening came to a close and upon further reflection, we later remembered that the last time we were anchored in the same mooring field in February, Harry had spotted a shark swimming under our boat so we think that Sarah met the resident shark of Warderick Wells.

Resident Rays at Warderick Wells