The Last Week

Not a week after leaving Georgetown, the biggest city in the central Exumas, we run out of propane. I am cooking when the burner stutters, then extinguishes. At first I blame the cross draft, but my inability to reignite the burner sets me straight. We are at Staniel Cay, a popular stop and wintering place for many cruisers, so we are hopeful that we can refill our tank. But a call to Isle General delivers bad news. They ran out Tuesday (it’s Wednesday) and won’t have more until the mailboat delivers on Saturday. DJ, a mechanic we’ve met, buys us some time us by lending us a fitting which permits us to transfer propane from the little grill bottles to the stove’s canister. It’s just 3 liters, but it’ll get us through the weekend. We decide to buddy cruise with Mary and DJ up to Cambridge Cay and after a fun few days (see last post), we ride the odd west wind back to Staniel Cay for propane. Not 30 minutes after anchoring, Helia pulls up in their dingy. They’ve just been to Thunderball and saw us as they came out of the cave. And Rob’s extra propane tank needs filling too! Zoe and JT are thrilled to be reunited.

After all of the errands are run and tanks filled, we rendezvous on the back side of a place called Big Major Spot. It’s tricky getting in here and people have moved only to avoid the odd westerly wind. As a consequence, all the kids find great shells on the beach. On the downside, the ocean waves also carry flotsam, and lots of sharp broken glass. While exploring, Tom and Rob find a small, but very cool blow hole in the jagged limestone rocks. We end the evening with drinks and swimming from the boat.

The next morning we head back to Cambridge and arrive in time to snorkel Rocky Dundas again at slack tide. The strong winds have stirred up the water so it’s murkier than before, but still quite nice. Mary’s caught the flu, so Colleen joins the kids for an afternoon of playing on the swing and card games aboard Helia. At slack tide the following morning we hit Sea Aquarium again and this time we find a lion fish. These gorgeous, but deadly fish are a menace to Caribbean reefs. Lionfish have poison tipped quills that can fell a human coupled with a voracious appetite that can decimate a reef. They aren’t native to this sea and have no known predator. People think they were introduced from fish tanks spilled by Andrew back in 1992. Upon returning to Liberator, Zoe promptly reports the fish to the Exuma parks so they can send someone out to collect it.

From here we head to Warderick Wells, home of the Exuma Park Headquarters. It’s a unique horseshoe-shaped anchorage with mooring balls. At low tide a beach emerges in the center, but otherwise it looks like a lake. Helia sails with us.  One afternoon we hike to Boo Boo hill, where tradition dictates leaving a piece of driftwood with your boat name among a pile at the hills’ peak overlooking the anchorage.  We snorkel at a couple of sites in the park and spot another lion fish (which we report at the park office). The reefs offer a lovely variety of angelfish, huge spiny lobsters, and the biggest grouper we’ve seen. We also spot a large nurse shark, which turns out to be the mildest of the sharks in the area. Several 6 feet long lemon sharks commonly circle the anchorage, especially at meals times. They seem to feed on the jacks and other fish that eat the scraps from the boaters.

One night we host dinner on our boat after landing a tuna on passage. The kids swim before dinner 

and after eating we are treated to a front row shark feeding when we toss our tuna scraps over board. Good thing we waited!! Their speed and grace is truly awesome. Finally, the weather forces us to push up the time of our crossing the Gulf Stream back to Florida. We decide to make Hawksbill and its close neighbor Shroud Cay our final stops before parting from Helia. The kids take a moratorium from school and we spend the days hiking, swimming and playing together. The final night we divide and our kids go to Helia for a movie while Rob and Ginnie enjoy drinks with us. It’s a doubly sad parting as we are not only are we leaving our new friends, but also our trip is also drawing to a close.