Southern Style: Compass Cay

We spent 3 wonderful days on a mooring at Warderick Wells and then headed off to our next stop over at Compass Cay Marina. It is a small marina with several docks and a dock office. They will make hamburgers on request for lunch for any of the boaters staying at the marina. They are also known for their group of friendly resident nurse sharks. People even get into the water with them here. Nurse sharks are a bottom dwelling, fairly docile shark. They have tiny serrated teeth and generally only bite defensively. They can grow quite large with some adults reaching 14 feet in length.

Nurse sharks at dock in Compass Cay

Southern Style in the marina at Compass Cay

Roof of the dock office with wooden plaques from visitors

During our first afternoon at Compass, we took the dinghy to do some snorkeling since the weather was perfect for it. One of our stops was called the Sea Aquarium. This reef has "tons" of fish and they are conditioned to have people bring treats for them. Keith and I did not have anything along to feed them, but they still swarmed all around us.

The Sea Aquarium

Good thing these guys are not piranhas or Keith would be a goner

Another quick stop was an old, small plane wreck that is marked on the charts.

The final snorkel spot for the day was the Rocky Dundas. These are two rocky islands with reefs along the eastern side as well as two caves at water level. Since we were there at low tide, it was easy to duck into the caves for a look. They are really cool. 15,000 years ago even more of these caves were out of the water. The ocean level was some 300 feet lower at that time, and all the Bahamian islands were one large land mass separated from Cuba by only a few miles of water. As the last glaciers melted the sea level rose and covered much of what is now called the Bahama Banks and left only the highest peaks sticking up above the water (what are now the many islands of the Bahamas).

Rocky Dundas

Caves at Rocky Dundas

Heading out of the caves

Snorkeling around the Rocky Dundas

There was also some Elkhorn Coral in this area we got to see. This coral got its name from its appearance which resembles the antlers of an elk. It has become quite rare and is considered by scientists to be critically endangered. An unusual factoid is that Elkhorn coral can reproduce both sexually and asexually. Fragments of the coral can break off in strong currents or storms and be displaced to another area where it will attach to a reef or other underwater structure and begin growing again. They can also release eggs and sperm into the water usually around the full moon in the fall. This is called broadcast spawning. Fertilized eggs then hatch in the water and within a few days find and attach to a reef to start growing a new colony.

Elkhorn Coral

On our second day at Compass Cay we spent some time in the morning walking the beach. We found some sea treasures and since we are no longer within the Land and Sea Park, we could keep these.

I did a long kayak paddle up into the mangrove creek in the afternoon. There were numerous juvenile sea turtles, but they were too fast for me to get over them with the kayak for good pictures with the go-pro.

View into the mangrove creek