Feb 8

 Yesterday we unanchored (apparently this is a word as its not coming up with a red squiggle like so many of my others [actually this isn’t true; you are more likely to see blue lines than anything due to my extreme dislike of the apostrophe key]) and headed down to the southern tip of Warderick Wells, where we re-anchored among the company of some other sailboats and a trimaran- basically a catamaran with 3 hulls.

Since this part of the island is still part of the park, it had trails going from beach to beach through the sparse vegetation. We decided that it was in our best interests to explore these trails, with our end destination at a place called Pirates Lair on the other side of the island. I might add that we never made it this far, due to the very unclear trail markings on Bush Basher trail. The trails were unlike any we have gone on so far- which is not a lot, but still-, since there is very little dirt on the islands, and for most of the trails there was no sand. In fact, the trails went over limestone rock, which had been eroded over time by water so it was all jagged and uneven. Also, to add to the difficulty of traveling over this terrain, there were large wells along the path, 2 meters in diameter and 10 meters deep, from what our rock throwing could decipher. And let’s not forget the poison wood growing alongside the trails, recognizable by its grey and orange bark and dark green leaves. Poison wood is a tree which is not unlike poison ivy, with all parts of it capable of giving out a very irritating rash on contact; however, the rash is about 5 times worse. Thankfully, no one had the misfortune of touching it.

Eventually we got to a beach, where we started up what was to be our last attempt at the journey. We hadn’t even been walking for 5 minutes before we started losing the trail, and eventually we had to admit defeat and head back to the beach for lunch. Because really, that was pretty much the main point of this trip, to have a picnic type lunch, which was made doubly awesome since some thoughtful person had thought to bring cookies.

 

The next day we left Warderics not so early in the morning, and suffered through a very very hot trip down to Pasture Cay. Near Pasture is an island called Little Hall Pond Cay- they were just stringing together words with this name. I mean really. I know there are a lot of islands in the exumas to name, but surely you can come up with something better than that.-which is owned by Johnny Depp (aka “Captain” Jack Sparrow, in Pirates of the Caribbean). You aren’t allowed to go on the island, at least that’s what we are assuming, and it has 3 wifi signals. Proof that some rich guy owns it.
 

We attempted to snorkel around some rock that was in front of our boat in the afternoon….. One second, I just had an important update from Mom who happens to be sitting beside me at the present time. It seems that LHP Cay actually has 6 wifi signals, which were discovered after scrolling down the list a ways. Anyway, back to snorkeling. We saw some fish, however none were exceptionally large or spectacular. Then we saw the 6 foot wide, 10 foot long- tail included- Spotted Eagle Ray. It was exceptionally large and spectacular, however the giant beaked face was a little disconcerting. Somehow mom didn’t notice it until it was like 4 feet away, even with all the pointing and shouting that was going on (it was our first large ray that we had seen while in the water, so we found it exciting).However I think we managed to get a decent picture of it, though I’m not sure the picture really managed to catch the size of it well.