3/4/09 - Cambridge Cay and Compass Cay

We left Warderick Wells Tuesday morning and picked up a mooring at Cambridge Cay, still in the Exuma Land and Sea Park. Chilly winds threatened to thwart our plans for a snorkeling excursion to the Sea Aquarium (not a real aquarium, just the name of the area), but we're tough! We're from Minnesota! Our grit and determination rewarded us with the best snorkeling we've had in the Bahamas so far. We were befuddled at the enthusiastic reception given us by the fish - they swarmed us as soon as we entered the water - until we remembered that they expect visitors to bring food.
It was a long, CHILLY dinghy ride back to Lena Bea in our cold, wet dive skins.

Considering the weather, we decided to move on to Compass Cay. There isn't much to do on land at Cambridge Cay and I'm not going in the water again until it warms up. Our volunteer mooring hosts at Cambridge Cay, Alena and Rick on Movin' On, saved us a couple hours by showing us how we could take a direct route to Compass Cay even though the charts show that the water is too shallow. Alena and Rick call the Bahamas home; they volunteer in the park for about four months a year and spend the rest of the year cruising.

Compass Cay is a beautiful spot! Some say it's the prettiest cay in the Bahamas, and we cannot disagree with that. The marina is small, friendly, and personal, and the island is fabulous. Wayne and I decided to forgo a highly recommended trip to Rachel's Bubble Bath on the northern tip of the island because of the weather. Instead, we went for a 3-hour hike on marked trails that took us to Crescent Beach, then south and west along the shore. We walked across the "low tide airport," climbed the rocky cliffs along the shore, followed the trail along more beaches and through the island back to the marina. The scenery was breathtaking and we enjoyed the lack of monotony. Definitely the most interesting and scenic hike so far. Of course, photos don't begin to do it justice:We were here with some important people in the cruising world - Monty and Sara Lewis, authors of the Explorer Chartbook that is our bible for cruising the Bahamas. They are onboard their trawler, Saranade and had been at Compass for five days or a week, waiting for boat parts to make a repair. While we were chatting with Sara, Monty and the friend who got them the boat parts arrived in the dinghy. They had made their repair and left by the time we returned from our hike.