Southern Style: Warderick Wells Cay

Thank heavens we have recovered from our storm trauma. After getting into Highborne Cay Wednesday morning January 23rd and then spending the following day, Thursday there as well; we fully recovered from our anchoring nightmare. We were refreshed and ready to finally take advantage of the beautiful waters of the Bahamas.

We headed back out Friday morning for Warderick Wells Cay. This is the home office location for the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park. There were some showers around the day we pulled into the park and this beautiful rainbow formed above our anchorage for the night. This could only be a good sign for our two days to be spent at the park headquarters.

The brown, wooden building on the hill is the park office. The lighter colored building is the personal housing and Bahamian Defense Force housing.

View of some of the moorings in the park

Once we got situated on our assigned mooring ball, we were off to hike up to the top of Boo Boo Hill. This hill is the highest point on the cay of Warderick Wells. Boaters have been leaving the names of their boats on wooden plaques here for years. Legend has it that a boatload of missionaries wrecked off Warderick Wells and they were buried on Boo Boo Hill. Two additional shipwrecks occurred off Warderick Wells back in the 1700-1800's. It is said that on moonlit nights the sound of a congregation singing hymns can be heard. It can make for some interesting nights at anchor or on a mooring ball.

View from atop Boo Boo Hill looking south

Southern Style from Boo Boo Hill

Looking North from the hill

Looking out across the mangroves from the hill

At the top there is a bench with this sign that Keith thought was very appropriate and profound.

These are the wooden plaques people leave at the top of Boo Boo Hill

We hiked along the northern part of the island, through the mangroves and along part of the beach. I found some treasures, but could only take pictures in the park. Collecting shells or anything else in the park is prohibited.

We also saw many lizards along the limestone rocks and some juvenile rays in the mangroves.

There were also tracks from the islands best known land mammal, the hutia.

The hutia is a plump, brown rodent without a tail (a cuter version of a rat). They average about one and a half pounds in weight and are nocturnal. They are the only land mammal native to the Bahamas. Many years ago the Bahamian hutia was an important food source of the Indian inhabitants of the islands. Over the centuries their population became depleted and they were believed to be extinct. In 1966, however, hutia were rediscovered on one of the islands. Since then their population has again flourished (they are rodents and known for their ease in reproduction). They are still a protected species; and it is illegal to harm, capture, or export the hutia. We got to see one come out after dark when we were on the beach with some other boaters and park personnel having evening cocktails. The little guy wandered around the beach, I think probably looking for a hand-out. It was too dark to get a picture of him, but I can say I’ve seen a hutia.

There are several blow holes along the beach that we also checked out. The seas were fairly calm so they were not spouting very high but they were still pretty cool.

Blow holes on Warderick Wells Cay

On our way back to Southern Style we saw some spotted eagle rays in the mooring field. These creatures are beautiful and big. Their tails are longer than most common rays and have from 2-6 poisonous barbs. They feed on sea creatures such as mollusks, crabs, octopus, and small fish. They are social animals and often occur in groups. We were seeing a group of 5 regularly in the mooring field. The sharks are the main predators of the eagle ray.

There was also a friendly nurse shark hanging around our dinghy.
(Baby shark doo doo doo doo doo doo, baby shark)

On our second day we took the dinghy down toward the southern end of the island and hiked to some old Loyalist ruins. The ruins of several buildings date from the 1780's and consist of rock and conch shell mortar walls. The buildings were built by Loyalists living on the cay. Loyalists were people living in America around the time of the War for Independence that sided with the British (losers). They believed America should remain a colony of England. When the new United States of America won its independence from England a number of these Loyalists fled to the Bahamas to live. The Loyalists on Warderick Wells are said to have lived peacefully for many years; however rumor has it that they developed some ill will between themselves and some of the pirates that hung around these waters. The rumor goes so far as to suggest the Loyalists were massacred to the pirates and possibly buried on the island. Just one more reason the island has a reputation of being haunted.

Hiking up along a rock wall to the ruins

The foundations are still visible of the buildings dating back in the late 1700's.

In addition to hiking we went around the southern tip of the island and into a cove called Pirates Lair. Here there exists a type of reef formation that is very old. The formations are called stomatolites.

Reefs such as these are the oldest evidence of life on Earth. Some fossil stomatolites date back 3.5 billion years and with Earth being around 4 billion (well you can do the math). Stomatolites were the dominant reef forming material for some 3 billion years and helped to create the conditions by which higher life forms could develop upon the Earth. Earth 3.5 million years ago was not at all like it is today. There was no oxygen in the atmosphere or in the water. It would be 3 billion years before primitive animals such as jellyfish, corals, worms, and trilobites will appear. The only living creatures where the stomatolites. They could use carbon dioxide and liberate oxygen into the water and the atmosphere. After billions of years the stomatolites produced enough oxygen to allow animal life to develop. Stomatolites reefs are created by tiny blue-green algae or cyanobacteria. Being plants, they require sunlight for photosynthesis. As they grow they trap sediment and cement it together into tightly packed layers of limestone. These flat, mounds are called stomatolites, a Greek term meaning mattress rocks. The stomatolites reefs here in the Exumas are estimated to be about 2,000 years old.

Stomatolite reef formation. They are not that exciting to look at, but very cool to think that they are living things some 2,000 years old.

There were beautiful traditional reefs along the edges of the cove. Here are some of the pictures I got until the shark showed up and I decided to get out of the water for the afternoon.

My underwater shots

Once the shark chased me out of the snorkel spot, we went back to Southern Style to chill. There was a sand bar that had formed at low tide so we took the dinghy and beach chairs to sit for a spell.

This is Keith and Pengi sitting on the sand bar. (Pengi was too small to show up on the chair).