Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park
20 January 2006 | Hawksbill Cay, Central Bahamas
After spending one great week in Normans Cay we finally pulled up the hook and are heading southbound.We only have an eight mile sail to our next anchorage. Daniel will help Menno take the dinghy motor off of the dinghy, we will not lift the dinghy onto the davits today but let it be pulled behind Eira. John helps Menno bring in the anchors. We have set two out this time due to the gale blow last week and also because of the strong tidal currents that run through this anchorage. Menno will go out in the dinghy to pull up the one anchor by hand and John stays on the foredeck and pulls the anchor rope into the anchor locker. For the second anchor he uses the electric windlass and with a push of the button- up comes the anchor! Both anchors were covered well with sea grass. I am at the helm and wait for the all clear signal for us to go. The weather has been very windy for 2 weeks now. I know we are on a sailboat and that wind is good BUT the wind has been a steady blow of 15-25 knots daily for 2 weeks! It really is getting a wee bit tiring. We had to motor to Hawksbill Cay due to the wind direction and it was a bit lumpy but not to worry it was a quick trip. John and Daniel dropped the hook in 8 feet of clear blue water right off a beautiful white sandy beach. Hawksbill Cay is the first cay belonging to the Exuma Cays and Land Sea Park.( More about the park later). Except to say there is no fishing or hunting allowed in the park-at all! Glad we have a frig full of conch and grunts from Normans Cay! There are some great trails to hike and we had fun exploring the island. Daniel, John and Daisy would take off together and explore.They spotted lots of different colored lizards, the bright blue tailed lizard and lime green one were my favorite. They also found a snake skin. Saturday evening we had an impromptu cocktail hour on the beach. Four boats were anchored there and we all came ashore to chat. Our friends on Amanzi (Kim and David), Dalilah (Jill and Dean) and Jordan (a single hander on a catamaran). Menno took the kayk back to Eira and brought cocktails for all to enjoy, it was a fun evening. Most of the cruisers we meet are retired and have spent many seasons cruising in the Bahamas. They are snowbirds who spend the winters in the Bahamas and the summers in the north. This evening all of us were 20, 30 and 40-something, a nice change. So we are sitting on the beach at sunset and Daniel says "Look a shark!" and sure enough there is a shark fin swimming just 20 feet off shore from us! Very odd to see the shark fin swimming like that, we normally will see the sharks underwater and not there fin sticking up! da-da-da-da!(that was suppose to sound like Jaws!)