Sunday February 25, 2018 - Layover at Exuma Land and Sea Park

I'm not sure why but it was a little rough at times last night. I don't believe it rained (much) but there must have been a couple squalls pass nearby.  In any event, it's a beautiful morning - bright sunshine and winds east around 15 (not howling). 

Just after I wrote the last paragraph, a squall came through and gave us just enough rain to give True Blue a small rinse.  As it was passing through, I looked out the companionway and saw a great rainbow.  I spent about an hour at the park office wandering around with my phone trying to get a connection.  I did get it to connect long enough to download some updated GRIB (weather files) but I wasn't able to get a good enough connection to send the emails I had typed on my laptop.  Guess they will have to wait till tomorrow when I get to Eleuthera. 

I went for a very (for me) long walk around the park.  Besides being about 5 miles, about 2/3 of it is what they call honeycomb.  It is very tretcherous to walk on - many large and small holes, very sharp peaks that you can't avoid.  I'm surprised my shoes held up.

When I got back from my  hike, I dinghied over to my new friends Mike and Lisa on their Morgan 46 "Sheet Music".   I wonder if one of them is a musician. They saw Baltimore on the back of True Blue and stopped for a chat (earlier in the day). They are from Havre de Grace MD.  And, like me, they are leaving in the morning for Rock Sound.  They will only be there for a couple days and then they are  going North to Governor's Harbour and Hatchet Bay.  I'll be going there too but not as quickly as them since Robert doesn't fly into Gov. Harbour until March 8th. 

So, I came back to the boat, left my hiking gear, got my snorkeling gear and dinghied about a quarter mile to an area where they have installed two dinghy moorings - just for snorkeling.  From above the surface, I wasn't really expecting much since it was a little deep and in an open area.  When I was in my 20s, I lived in San Diego for almost 2 years and in Hawaii for almost 3 years so I've done a lot of snorkeling.  But when I jumped in and cleared my mask, I was shocked at how beautiful it was.  There was LOTS of very unusual corals that I had never seen before.  I think the word pristine best describes it.  I think that was simply because it is an underwater park where they don't allow anything to be removed from the bottom. Also, the fact that they do not allow anchoring.  There were 2 or 3 varieties of a beautiful purple coral. Some was fan coral and some were just long tentacles.  There were not a lot of fish but I must have seen about 20 different varieties with lots of yellows and purples.  I was only in the water for 30 minutes but I was soooo glad I went in. 

True Blue




Exuma Land and Sea Park