Warderick Wells Birthday

...Atop Boo Boo Hill with the team...

We sailed on a perfect beam reach from Highbourne Cay south to Warderick Wells, which is the center of the Exumas Land and Sea Park. To us, this one of the most beautiful places on earth. The deserted islands with crescent beaches lined with rock edges makes it a dream to explore. Walking trails traverse over sharp jagged rocks that look like the surface of the moon and wind through hard sand tidal flats with waters running out to sea. The trails lead you to the park office and more beaches and also up to the top of Boo Boo Hill, one of the the highest points in all of the Bahamas. All of these features help to make Warderick Wells a perfect place to celebrate Hayden's birthday. With our buddy boats  IP380 PLAN SEA, Jim and Loretta, and Crealock 34 NEVERLAND, Jim and Cynthia, we shared a delicious meal aboard Island Spirit, laughed and had a great time. Sharing places like this with friends makes it even more special and more memorable. Make sure to add Warderick Wells to your cruising bucket list. Look at the following photo because THIS is why we sail to the Exumas, the water is so beautiful....

The winds from this frontal system, which is causing SNOW up north at home in PA is unusual in that it has zero West or Northwest component to the strong winds. All the wind has been from the North and the Northeast which makes for a great anchorage off Emerald Rock on the south side of the park office. So we dropped the hook here, as all the mooring balls were taken in the north field, and we used the dinghy to reach the beaches and hike the trails. Below is the approach across the tidal flats from Boo Boo Hill as we look west towards the park office.

The birthday dinner aboard was baked chicken with cheese and artichoke hearts, walnut topped green beans and home made "Hayden bread." Then to top it off Radeen made her own invention of a Jerry Garcia Chocolate Cherry Cobbler because Hayden loves cherry and chocolate flavors. This was a great meal and a very fun night celebrating with friends while on anchor in paradise. We can not think of a better day! Loretta wrote an acrostic poem using the letters of my name.... what a great surprise! Thank you to Jim and Loretta and Jim and Cynthia for making my birthday so special.

Another reason Warderick Wells and the Exumas are so different is that there is very limited internet and there are zero TV channels, nothing. Imagine being in a location where there is no cell phone coverage unless you climb up Boo Boo Hill and hold your phone up in the air. You have no TV broadcasts, none, and cell towers do not reach here. I am blogging this via my cell which is in a power booster cradle connected to an outside 3G 4G antenna booster and I am still only getting 1/2 a bar of signal that comes and goes. I also am up at 4:30 am to use the cell tower when fewer people are on the tower. Still I can hardly connect, and that is very, very rare in this world.

One more aspect that is making this trip interesting and different is our watermaker. Since leaving Miami, we have made water every day. We run the unit as planned for about 1 to 1.5 hours a day and that makes 8 to 12 gallons. For the first time, we arerunning it on anchor at Warderick Wells totally off the wind machine. Imagine making drinking water from saltwater and wind power alone. Now THAT is a very cool thing to do! We are having 15-20 knots of wind and the battery bank is full at 13.3 volts this 4am. While making water, the bank never dropped below 12.8 volts.The MK450, Marine Kinetics wind turbine is fantastic!

From here we will sail south to Staniel Cay Yacht Club and get our "town" and "civilization" fix for a day or two and then we will sail back north to the park to Cambridge Cay where we will do some snorkeling and prepare for the arrival of the next cold front which will have WEST winds...maybe. 

For now, please enjoy these photos of Warderick Wells and our time here....(click photos to enlarge)