Warderick Wells Cay

Warderick Wells Cay is a beautiful place. The weather has been perfect and life is great.
We dinked in to sign up with the Exumas Land and Sea Park folks and saw this reconstructed whale skeleton. It's real. The sign said that the whale was killed by swallowing man made plastic products.

As we were walking about we saw this guy landing his seaplane in the harbor.

The view from Boo Boo Hill
The Emerald Rock Mooring Field

Later we took to one of the hiking trails and walked up to the peak of Boo Boo Hill. It's said that on a full moon night one can hear the singing of hymns from some ghostly choir. We heard nothing... We we're watching the NCAA basketball tournament. Go Memphis!!

Many boaters who stay here hike this trail and leave something memorable at the peak of Boo Boo Hill. This pic is just a small portion of the monumental pile of Flotsam and jetsam with the names of boats and/or their crew painted or engraved.

Yesterday was a postcard day here at Warderick Wells. When the weather is right this place is paradise and yesterday we were Paradisians. The colors are what one dreams of when imagining the ideal Caribbean isle.

Today we are leaving for Compass Cay Marina. The weather is supposed to take a turn for the worse... but maybe not so bad... we hope. The safety of a marina for the upcoming blow might not be a bad thing.

So for now,

Adios,


Istaboa

Down the chain of the Exumas

There's not much at Norman's Cay... but click on the link and read about it's violent past as the drug smuggling headquarters of Carlos Lehder.
Now there is just the landing strip and McDuff's restaurant; and a beautiful and peaceful island of course.


We wondered how many billions of dollars of contraband passed through this little landing strip.

A quote from Wikipedia about Norman's

With the Bahamian authorities looking the other way and the local inhabitants scared off, the island became a haven of debauchery for Lehder and his associates. Carlos Toro remembers, "Norman's Cay was a playground. I have a vivid picture of being picked up in a Land Rover with the top down and naked women driving to come and welcome me from my airplane...

Click on this link to see more photos of Carlos' operation or rather what's left of it.

Then we dinked around to the other side of the island. This would have been a much better place to have dropped anchor but we were already committed to our spot on the west side.


Remains of an old drug smuggling plane in the shallows. We wondered if their ditch was as successful as the recent one in New York.

Night before last was a very bumpy one anchored out from Norman's Cay. A front of some kind blew past and kicked up 4' swells. But the anchor held and at around 4:00 AM the wind stopped and the sunrise was as beautiful as the sunset the previous day.

We are now at Warderick Wells on a mooring buoy around Emerald Rock. It's beautiful here and the weather is supposed to be good for a couple of days.
More on Exumas Land and Sea Park later.

Adios,

Istaboa