Waderwick Wells, Exumas

Friday, April 6, 2007

024-23.640 N
076-37.920 W

Ahoy from Waderwick Wells in the Exumas!

Waderwick Wells is within the Exumas Land and Sea Park and is absolutely stunning. When people talk about how beautiful the Exumas are, this is one of the locations that they talk about. The N anchorage at Waderwick Wells consists of a crescent shaped channel with sand banks on either side. The channel is about 12' deep and is probably 100' wide. The sand banks are almost dry at low tide. You are not allowed to anchor here and there are about 22 mooring balls in the N anchorage and 26 by Emerald Rock.

The water is incredibly clear. You can look down at the bottom of the channel, which is 12', and you can see incredible detail. Schools of large fish congregate under the boats. We have large Snappers and Jacks under BlueJacket and Unicorn has a Nurse shark. It's a lot of fun to listen to kids squeal through their snorkels as they discover the fish under their boats! The sand banks to the W are very shallow at low tide and are great places for families to play in the water.

The Exumas Land and Sea park is about 22 miles long and 8 miles wide. It consists of 15 major islands and lots of tiny ones. It's a no take zone, so you're not allowed to fish or even collect shells. The headquarters for the park is on Waderwick Wells. There are many trails throughout the islands and there are also moorings at popular snorkel sites. Wireless Internet is available for $10/day at the park HQ. Moorings are $20/night for a 40' boat and are $10 more for every 10 feet.

Two days ago we pulled into Hawksbill cay which is another beautiful location. Some call it one of the prettiest cays within the Exumas. I'd be hard pressed to argue. It's hard to argue with azure water and miles of white sand beaches.

The weather up until now has been wonderful (other than it had been blowing too hard from the E). It's been 70 at night and in the low 80s during the day and it's been dry. Today we have a cold front coming through and the forecast for the next week+ is for cold fronts to come through every few days. It seems that this is all connected to the arctic cold that is pushing its way into the mid-west and NE. This should make finding anchorages interesting, as the winds switch from the E to the W as these blow through.

-- Geoff & Sue

Log ID: 947