Warderick Wells and the Fish Aquarium

By Capt. Scott Buckley

Warderick Wells

We called the Park Rangers at 9AM the next morning and scored a mooring ball in the northern field.  We hauled the anchor and started that way. 

The Cruisers version of the "Throttle Jockey"

As there were other boats in the area doing exactly the same thing we were doing there were a couple of boats all headed to the mooring field.  A lot of these guys race from anchorage to anchorage at top speed so that they can grab the best anchorages.  I find it a bit annoying at times.  I saw one guy towing his dinghy and wanted to see how bad this guy wanted that closer mooring ball.  I increased the engine throttle and got SV Kooky Dance going at 7 + knots.  SV Kooky Dance started to pull ahead but it was not more than a minute later the black smoke started belch from this other guys boat as he dumped all the throttle he could to get his boat moving.  His dinghy was bucking and bouncing behind him as he gave chase and was actually keeping pace and maybe gaining a little.  I eased back on the throttle and let him go ahead as I did not like burning that much fuel and a closer mooring ball was not that important to us even though we generally row our dinghy everywhere.  However I have witnessed these guys all over the place.  You can usually spot then as they are the one carrying fuel out to their boat frequently. The difference in fuel consumption is not insignificant.  My average fuel consumption during the 2,800 mile we have done since we started is about 0.70 gallons per hour at a cruising speed of 6 knots.  The engine RPMs are around 1900.  If I increase the throttle and bump up the RPMs to 2600 the speed increases from 6 knots to 7.5 knots but the fuel consumption jumps to 1.9 gallons per hour.  So for a 25% increase in speed the fuel consumption increases 170%.

Anyway I digress, we had pulled anchor and headed to Warderick Wells.  As we approached the park ranger assigned us to ball 13.  At the time we did not know if that was good or bad.  The channel into the northern mooring field is only a few  feet wide or at least it seems that way.  The moorings are right in the middle of this narrow channel with boats attached to them.  There is very shallow water at each side of the channel that include some very nasty looking rocks.  Did I mention there is also a pretty swift current running thru this 2 foot wide channel with the rocks on each side and the boats bobbing around in the middle of it.  I am starting to remember why we skipped it the first time thru the Exumas. 
Well we found mooring 13 and wouldn’t you know it the sailboat version of speed racer is at the next mooring up.  He was standing on his deck smiling smugly that he got mooring 12.  At the time I was wondering if I could hit him in the chest with my fishing spear.  Oh, nothing fatal just a piercing hit to the chest or throat.  Could I resist the temptation of gutting and cleaning him until I came to my senses?
We settled in for the night.  We would assemble the dinghy and head into the ranger station to sign in to next morning.

The Warderick Wells northern mooring field

Kooky Dance on mooring 13

The beach at the ranger station

The path to the ranger station at the top of the hill

  
After we signed in we headed over to snorkel and explore the coral gardens.  There were a lot of fish and lobster in the reef.  They had little fear of people as you are not aloud to take anything from the park.  Their motto is; “Take only pictures, leave only foot prints”.

We rowed the dinghy to some beaches and had to fight a bit of tidal current to get back to SV Kooky Dance.
 
The snorkeling was great but you had to be mindful of the tidal current.  We left the next day in the late morning towards a place called the “Fish Aquarium” near Obrien's Cay.  It is still inside the Exuma Land and Sea Park.  We found a mooring ball open and tied up to it.  We ended up staying here for 3 days.  The snorkeling was even better and the current was much more manageable.  We rowed around to the ocean side of the cay and saw some sharks.  I also spotted my first lion fish since arriving in the Bahamas.  I called the park to see if I could get permission to take the lion fish.  They are an invasive species that is devastating the reef, however the park ranger did not give me permission so that lion fish lived to see another day.


The "Fish Aquarium" from the surface

The reef life and fish were not a disappointment.

That is a small shark

That's a big hermit crab



Nassau Grouper

Brain Coral or sometimes called Zombie Coral..Hee   Hee 

We met up again with SV Alice Mae and they anchored with us for the entire time we were at the “Fish Aquarium”.  It turns out Johnny Depp owns the island right next to Obrien’s Cay and it is the hangout of some very fancy boats.

From here we planned to head farther south to Black Point and wait out some weather.  We also needed a few provisions that should be available in Black Point.  We had been there before and liked it a great deal.