Day 7 of Exuma cruise

We have begun our trip back north. Barry and Marcia have things to do in Hope Town and we have to get back to the US before our Bahamian visa expires. In fact we are beginning to toy with the idea of getting back asap so that we can leisurely cruise north and explore some of the named anchorages in our little book of Floridian anchorages that were so useful on the way south and the Bahamian version of which was also a great tool during our cruise in the islands.

Our dinner last night was really excellent. We will definitely come back to Black Point Settlement just because, but we will definitely plan another dinner at Deshamon's the food was that good. Barb's lamb dish was very good and my ribs were excellent and the prices were half ways normal. Also when we got back to Nelleke the wind had died down and when we got aboard we were then faced with waiting for the seas to lie down too at any rate we didn't feel that we needed to worry about the anchor set last night. We got the motor up and dingy into the davits and ready for an early departure. The wind did clock around eventually by midnight to the SE which is where it was supposed to be all day, so at least we had a more comfortable night with no swell refracting into the anchorage.

We had a brief flurry of concern early this AM when, after a call of nature, I noticed that our freezer error light was on. Normally this results from a low battery but the system was set on house bank and that was showing 24.5VDC which should be plenty. Then I checked the cranking bank and it showed a mere 23.3. Shock and horrors! Visions of the North end of Alligator River Pungo Creek Canal danced through my head. Regular readers may recall that was when a similar thing happened and we were stuck for half a day waiting for the suitcase generator to charge up the batteries. For those of you who are not aware our cranking bank is 24VDC but since the starting motor is 12V we only tap off the lower 12V for the start but the 24V alternator charges the whole thing. I was getting ready with the jumper cables when I tested the lower 12 on the cranking bank and lo and behold it showed 24.8. .??? The upper 12 must be at fault. However, just to make sure, I started the engine up to make sure that I had it when we were due to set off. Wow! I will have to keep my eye on things over the next week or so, but it is definitely something that makes me even more keen to get Nelleke back to the mainland and up on the hard. Regardless, by about 04h00 this morning all seemed well again. I would have been away then but we need the light to be able to haul the anchor since it is the claw with the suspect roller on the bowsprit. I shut the engine off to conserve fuel and hurrah it started again when we asked it to.

Hauling up the anchor was an adventure in itself both because it had to be don by hand but also because the claw had indeed dug well into the hard sand. I am beginning to wonder if there might not be a quick disconnect way to put different anchors on the primary all chain rode. That would be the answer. At any rate by 06h30 and barely enough light to see by we were off and four hours later we arrived at Warderick Wells, a national park, and boy what a place - moorings that are well maintained, great snorkelling spots, hiking trails, even a little store and place to rent videos etc. The moorings cost $20/night which is quite reasonable but not the sort of place that you'd want to spend months at. It would add up. Not that it might not be worth it. They have moorings for big boats and for smaller boats; for deeper draft boats and for those not so much. Just a well laid out and run spot. Oh did I mention no fishing, no conching, no lobstering, no she'll collecting etc and they have four members of the Bahama Defence Force here to enforce it.

After registering and taking Peri in to ease springs we went for a walk to Boo Boo Hill a site in memorial o a schooner that was lost on a nearby reef with the loss of all hands. The custom is for cruising yachties to take their own piece of driftwood with the name of their boat inscribed on it to leave on the hill as a sort of salute to the lost sailors of that ship wreck and of all others. This was a March through the second circle of hell! Rocky coral outcroppings, flat parched sand paths over dried up stream beds climbs up hills culminating in the site that looks like a bonfire pile until you look closely and see that there are hundreds of pieces of driftwood each containing inscribed through carving or simple writing the names of past visitors who have taken the time and effort to walk up there. We are now numbered among them.

We took the dink out to one of the snorkelling moorings and checked things out. It's amazing hat enforced conservation will do to wildlife. In a fifteen mi ute snorkel we easily saw a dozen three pound spiny lobsters. We saw queen Angels, grey Angels, grouper, tang, snappers and many many more that I had no idea what they were. Then on the way back to Nelleke we saw ray after ray after Ray gliding by underneath us. This is what the cruising life is supposed to be all about: warmth, sunshine, sandy beaches, scantily clad women (men too, Barb reminds me) and nature at its best. The water is so clear that I am sitting on the deck thumbing this it looks like e should be aground hen in fact we are in 20' of water. I have been watching a remora swim back and forth under Nelleke trying to decide if he is ver going to get scraps from us. I also saw a couple of albacore tuna swim through rather like missionaries at a cannibal feast. All as clear as can be.

Fish for dinner tonight. Appropriate I thought.