Land & Sea Park, Bahamas, Warderick Wells Cay, Exumas,

Land and Sea Park, Warderick Wells Cay, Exuma Cays, Is a Bahamas National Park and Land Perserve. For more information please visit this site.

http://www.bahamascruisersguide.com/page75/page19/page19.html

The Land and Sea Park in the Exumas was the next stop in our voyage as we headed north on our island hope up the Exumas. Warderick Wells Cay, is a National park, and preserve, this is a no take zone. This means that you are not allowed to fish, or take lobster or conch. You are not even allowed to pick up shells off the beach. Take or leave anything, but foot prints in sand and in the ripples of the water.

You are not even allowed to anchor, you must pick up mooring balls that are provided in the channel leading in and out of the cay. The mooring balls should be reserved in advanced, and the cost is about $20 per night. Every morning on the VHF at about 8am, the park makes a call out, for all leaving the park and the moorings, records moorings that have become available, then calls out for those that would like to reserve them, first come first serve. We were able to get a ball in the morning call, and made our way to the park.

Once on the ball, we got in our dinghy, and made our way to the park office to pay for our mooring. Once on shore, you will find the old skeleton remains of a full size whale that beached here and died. I believe the length was about 50 feet. The sign says, the whale died from ingesting too much plastic waste thrown off boats. I suspect it had more too do with the whale landing in the shallows of this cay. But non the less, lets not litter in the ocean! You can see from the photos my children playing inside the skeleton. Brings bag memories of the story of Jonas and the whale. You can see how the biblical story can very much be believed. Inside the whale, there is a large cavity, and air enough for someone to survive!

We spent the day exploring the islands, hiking all around. We found many interesting sites to explore. A blow whole in the rocks, where  sea water would blow through many times a day, especially during high tide. A cave where olden day pirates might have hid out. You’ll also notice a pile of drift wood, each with some inscription from past cruisers, leaving their boat names to mark their visit to this location at some point in time!

The most interesting part of this cay, was that during low tide, much of the inlet would become dry and sandy, and during high tide it would cover up with water. In one of the picture below you can see us walking on the sand that was revealed during low tide. In some of the other photos, you’ll notice the row of boats, on their moorings. Another must stop location to visit.