Greetings From Warderick Wells

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Greetings from Warderick Wells
Bahamas Land & Sea Park

Today we sailed from Normans’s Cay to Warderick Wells Cay. It was a 21 mile trip with plenty navigational challenges like dodging coral heads and reading the water by the color of green or blue which tells us how deep the water is up ahead. Generally, dark blue is good and light blue or light green means shallow water. It seems we can see the bottom virtually all of the time so the water always looks shallow, even when it is 10-15’ feet deep.
Norman’s Cay is known because it served as a compound for a drug dealer named Carlos Leder back in the 90’s. It still has the ruined buildings and the airstrip used to move the drugs. It is now used by the few island residents to fly back and forth to Nassau. We anchored for the night about 50 yards from the remains of a drug smuggling plane that missed the runway one night and wound up in the water short of the runway. Our other event on Norman’s was a kayak ride into the beach to discover that there was a really nice beachside restaurant that claims to serve the best “Cheeseburgers in Paradise”. There seemed to be only about a dozen buildings on this island including the restaurant, the airstrip and a few houses, four of which are beachside rental cottages.
Warderick Wells is the headquarters for the Bahamas Land & Sea Park. It is a 30 square mile area of islands that is a preserve for fish and lobsters to breed and nothing can be taken from the park. This is by far the most scenic harbor we have been to. We are moored in a small bight with two other boats that is surrounded by a sand bar on three sides. The bar is dry at low tide and under about 18” of water at high tide. The park has several nature trails that we can hike and also has numerous coral reefs that are marked with yellow floats. The floats serve as a place to tie up our dingy while we snorkel on the reef.

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Photos

Park Headquarters
All of the cruisers gather here to discuss the weather and travel plans

Moored Boats
We became good friends with Doug & Sharon on "About Time"

Warderick Wells
The current runs through the anchorage at 2-3 knots so all boats must use moorings