Wow. Just wow. So THIS has got to be one of the best places in the Bahamas. The water. The sand. The sun. We left Highborne Cay and headed north to Allen’s Cay for a change of scenery. We motored up north a bit and were rewarded with gorgeous beaches, calmer waters, endangered rock iguanas, and bananaquits! There was some great drift snorkling, too.
Allen’s Cay – iguanas, bananaquits, sleepless nightsleepless night
From Allen’s we went to Norman’s Cay to snorkel the plane wreck. The wreck was a fun experience but setting the anchor in such strong current left my nerves frazzled. I was glad to move the big boat out of the channel, away from the wreck, and around to the back side of the island to anchor. And horray for other families that showed up! We stayed at the anchorage an extra day with boat buddies to hang out at the beach, and what a great back hangout it was!
From Norman’s we moved to Shroud Cay. Shroud has a really neat creek that goes through the mangroves to a place called ‘The Washing Machine’. We went at low tide and saw so many creatures. Two sharks, multiple rays, a sea cucumber, probably 20-30 turtles, fish, and a bearded fireworm (as I like to say, a Bahamian nope rope. Do not touch). We had a bigger adventure than planned as we took a different creek back to the boat. The tide wasn’t high enough so we ended up walking in ankle to thigh deep water, pulling the dinghy most of the way back. We made it back to Two Fish just in time for the sun to set. We went back to do the creek and washing machine a second time, but this time at high tide, and what a difference. We saw very few animals, but the washing machine was in full force; you could get in the water and the current would pull you out toward sea, and you would swim over to the shore and walk back to repeat the ride. We also did the short climb up CIA hill. Story goes, a CIA agent was stationed here to watch for drug running planes to fly by (remember the wreck we just snorkeled?) and would report on their activity. Pretty view of the mangroves and leeward side of the island. We finished up our time at Shroud with a sunset at Olly Beach (Chris named it 
) with our friends from Bobin.
OMG the liferaft is back! You cannot make it up. The friends that were going to return it had a change of sailing plans and are headed back to the US, so we met up and now have the life raft back in its old place, strapped to our bench. Oh the stories this life raft could tell!
Our next spot was Warderick wells, also in the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park. The mooring field is breathtakingly beautiful. The first day we did the Hutia Hill hike, which led us past a quarry, a little secluded beach, over a little bridge, and way up a hill. This hike is named after the Hutia, a small nocturnal rodent whose only evidence of existence was copious amounts of pellet excrement. The next day we hiked BooBoo hill, which had us crossing Banshee Creek, playing on musical rocks, and leaving our placard at the pile up top. Our wood is remnants of a skim board we think, found at Shroud Cay. We also snorkeled the coral garden, which is adjacent to our mooring field, and walked around on the sand bar that was basically off our transom.
