Walderick Wells Cay is the headquarter and is in the heart of the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park. The park is a no-take zone by land or sea, so no fishing, lobstering, conching, or shelling – and its efforts are paying off. The only unnatural object is the Park Ranger station. Everything else looks the same today as it did hundred, or even thousands of years ago. And, it is gorgeous!

We arrived early to take advantage of the many activities available here. We initially planned on staying 3 days but a strong front with the gale-force wind coming this weekend so we’ll have to hang here for 5 days. The navigation to the park isn’t difficult but picking up the mooring was a tall task due to the strong current flow. We picked up the mooring ball effortlessly as Claudia and I had discussed this several times and were fully prepared for this.

We sat back in the cockpit and enjoyed the scenery with our ceremonial arrival drinks – ginger ale & seltzer water. The weather was perfect and the setting was pristine. The main island blocked the chop of the East wind and the little islands blocked the ocean swell on the Exuma Sound. The alternating deep and shoal water between the two land masses showed off the blue-to-white color gradient under a cloudless midday sun. Best of all, we had it all to ourselves, for the time being.

Energized by this little piece of paradise, we took our dinghy to Emerald Rock on a snorkeling expedition. Although we had to work against a bit of tidal current to view the coral formations, we felt like we were in the movie “Finding Nemo” because of the abundant sea life. The protected nature of the park created an opportunity to see more colorful fish and fragile coral than either of us had seen anywhere before. Of course, it helps that the water is gin-clear and that we had uninterrupted direct solar lighting.

The next day we loaded our backpacks and dinghied to the island for some hiking. We passed by “Stinky”, the Pilot whale skeleton, displayed on the beach near the ranger station. The huge sperm whale skeleton they’ve put back together on the main beach, at 53 ft long, it’s larger than our boat. The hiking trails are rugged and wildlife is unthreatened, animals tend to just stare as we pass. We had to be very careful to not step on small lizards. We hiked to the top of Boo Boo Hill, so named because you are supposed to hear the wailing of the lost souls from a terrible shipwreck here over a hundred years ago.  It has now become a tradition for visitors to leave a piece of driftwood behind with the name of their boats. It’s viewed as an offering to the God Neptune and the other sea gods for good sailing and safe passage. On top of the hill, we didn’t see any ghosts but we saw a pile of driftwood from past offering. We’ll need to come back tomorrow with Fujiko’s own offering.

After the hike to Boo Boo Hill, we hiked through a couple of different microclimates, and enjoyed a spectacular panoramic 360 view of the island. Nearby there were more cliffs to climb and the way these cliffs have eroded has also created some cool blow-holes, formed as sea caves grow landwards and upwards into vertical shafts and expose themselves towards the surface, resulting in hydraulic compression of seawater that is released through a port on the top. The air is pushed as waves enter the maze of caves below the rocks forcing the air and water back into the cave. They make a very strange sound and crazy seawater sprays. On the way back, we were pretty sweaty from the hike, Claudia decided to swim about 75 yards back to the boat as I followed her behind in the dinghy. Not 5 minutes back onto the boat, 2 bull-sharks appeared and circled our boat; Claudia said it was our lucky day and we need to buy lottery tickets.

We were fortunate to have enjoyed the island the first few days because that night the wind went up to gale strength, blowing a steady 25 knots, gusting to 40, for the next 36 hours.  It was strangely sunny and warm, but the waves were too big to go anywhere in the dinghy, so we hunkered down on the boat, playing cards, watching Netflix, baking bread, and cooked up some delicious Curry Chicken.

Tomorrow we leave for Staniel Cay to swim with the famous pigs, a large and beautiful black stingray came by to say hello. So cool! Thank you Bahamas. This will always be one of our favorite places on earth to have visited.