Warderick Wells

April 20, 2009

Ahoy from Namaste, Warderick Wells, Exumas

Hello all,

How is everyone? Hope you are all well, happy and enjoying spring. We just arrived in Warderick Wells on this beautiful Bahamian afternoon. We had a great sail up here with brisk wind and a following sea. The Exuma Land and Sea Park is one of my favorite places in the Bahamas. We took a nice walk up to the highest point on the island and then through asmall palm forest before heading back across the flats. Today the little lizards were out in numbers and they were brave enough to allow me to take a picture. They usually run away faster than you can catch a glimpse of them.  Back at the boat for the evening, we realized we have a good Internet connection so I thought I would update the blog.

We enjoyed our second stay in Georgetown. We were able to take care of the blossoming rust spots on the deck. Namaste is all sanded, painted and lovely again. We also worked on a puddin for Derby our dinghy. Chris crafted a protective covering for the front of Derby modeled after the puddins on the front of tugboats. The netting we used is recycled from our walk on the beach on Long Island. It is a work in progress and we are having fun with it. We enjoyed taking some time to get boat projects done before we begin our trek north for the summer.

We left Georgetown on the 17^th of April and sailed north on Exuma Sound to Blackpoint.  As usual we put out our two fishing lines hoping to catch a mahi mahi, a yellow snapper or some grouper. We sailed right up the 100-meter line just as we were told. We used our pink and orange squid like everyone else. As we reached Dotham Cut I heard the line snap and I was sure we had finally caught the big one. I tugged on the line and felt the fight at the other end. I slowly brought the fish toward the boat only to realize we had caught yet another barracuda. Some people will eat barracuda but we prefer not to since it can carry ciguatera. We have not had much luck catching fish, except barracuda, but it does not keep us from trying. Our fishing skills have long been a family joke.

We needed to bring in our lines anyway as we were already taking in sail to prepare for the squall we could see looming over Dotham Cut, our entrance onto the banks and Blackpoint. As it turned out there were two squalls and when the second one caught up with the first one they changed direction from west to south and headed right toward us. Rather than being quiet observers of the blackening sky, strong winds and blinding rain we became participants in this dark adventure. Since we can not outrun a 30 knot wind, the only thing to was go through it. It was our first squall. We were literally blinded by the amount of rain and the winds got up above 30 knots. It all ended as fast as it began, we were save in our little ship and in the end we witnessed a colorful rainbow arch its way over the sound. All was well. We were well prepared.

Blackpoint is a small settlement on Great Guana Cay. There are 3 churches and a few commercial establishments including two restaurants and a small grocery store in the settlement. The children were on spring break so we saw lots of activity in the streets. There were also some local sailors loading theirsail boats onto the mail boat to be delivered to Georgetown for the Family Island Regatta. We enjoyed our walks about town and meeting cruisers in the anchorage. On one of our walks we saw the large blowhole you can see in the photograph of the roiling ocean.

We plan to leave Warderick Wells early in the morning for Rock Sound, Eleuthera. We will probably be in Rock Sound through the weekend as the wind and seas are going to kick up the day after our arrival. I am looking forward to seeing the ocean hole at the edge of town and the 4 blue holes in the anchorage.

From Eleuthera we will head to the Abacos for a few weeks before we cross the Gulf Stream and head for the eastern U.S. coastline. We are looking forward to both our exploration of the Abacos and our trip up north for the summer.

That’s all for now.

Peace and Love