March 8th Warderick Wells South Anchorage

Despite the  stern anchor Harry deployed in Hawksbill, we still felt the surge rocking the boat side to side so we were awake at 6:30 am and got prepared to sail upwind to Warderick Wells with winds forecast to blow 15-20 ESE. Double reefed the main and jib and about 4 hours of upwind sailing later, we anchored in the southern mooring field as the northern mooring field was all booked. We tried a mooring ball in the southern anchorage first, bet felt the surge wrapping around from the south and decided it better to anchor so that we could deploy a surge bridle* and it had the bonus of costing half the price ($21). It was 2:00 pm by the time we got the dinghy off Juno and so we stopped by the deep coral reef to snorkel but the current was too strong so instead, we checked in at the Exuma Park HQ’s and went for a short walk along the Causeway trail. But with the sun shining down and in the lee of the wind, we were ready for a swim & snorkel so we headed to the corals off Emerald Rock, the large rock in the southern mooring field, where the current wasn’t a factor. We also snorkeled a few coral heads off the point at the southern part of the mooring field where we saw our first Bahama grouper. In the Exuma Land and Sea Park, fishing is not allowed and thus we feel we were lucky to spot a fairly large grouper hiding amongst the coral heads. 

Harry follows the yellow blazes along the Causeway Path

 

The "causeway"

Wonderful few from the top of Hutia Hill

 

Back at the beach the skeleton of a whale that died from ingesting plastic

Some cute fish near Emerald Rock

Someone showed up just in time for Sarah's swim back at Juno

 

 

* With the many cuts in between the Cays ocean swells come through and wrap around points of land you would be otherwise sure you had protection from.  The result is that while the bow is pointing into the wind, those sneaky surge waves, though not very large,  start  your boat rocking back and forth. One technique to counteract this is to use a surge bridle to pull the stern around so that the bow points more into surge waves. To rig a surge bridle, a long line is attached to the chain and run back around the stern cleat and up to a which. The chain is then let out about an additional boat length. Then the bridle line is brought in with the winch. This brings the stern around so that he bow is more into the surge waves. The boat only has to be brought around far enough that the surge waves are at about 45 degrees to the bow.