We spent the night in Cambridge Cay, another beautiful, remote anchorage in the Exumas Land and Sea Park. The anchorage is pretty empty except for two big motor yachts. We wonder where all the sailboats have gone since we haven’t seen one since entering the Exumas. There was one moored in Warderick Wells but it was there permanently.
We are surrounded here by unusual rock formations, white beaches and plenty of coral. That afternoon we took a short dingy ride to O’Brien Cay to see the Sea Aquarium and Rock Grotto. On the way there we stopped at another interesting spot, a light plane crash. There was a mooring ball to tie your dinghy up while you snorkeled over the plane in about 15 feet of water. It was very clear from the surface and we were just about to jump in when we noticed 3 big barracudas guarding the area. After very little discussion we decided to leave the plane to the fish and head for the sea aquarium.

The Sea Aquarium was perfect snorkeling for kids, consisting of a miniature wall dive with plenty of fish and the most colorful coral we have seen yet. It’s an explosion of color, bright yellow trumpet fish, yellow with black stripped sergeant majors, the greenish brown grouper, purple damselfish, all accentuated by the oranges, browns, purples, reds and golds of the coral. A dark green netted barrel sponge, which resembled a huge vase, smaller on the bottom flowing up and out to a larger opening, was a great hiding place for an angelfish. On the ocean floor, Tessa and I saw something with brown and with cream markings, with a snake-like body, and at first we thought it was a snake. Later when we got our reef identification book we discovered it was a Tiger Tail sea cucumber.

The current was a bit strong here so we kept a sharp eye on Tessa, She was so excited to see everything and yelled when she saw something, so we always knew where she was. I finally had to tell her that she needed to save her yelling in case she was really in trouble and if she wanted us to see something to tap us on the shoulder or talk in less than a yell, as we were starting to tune her out. Tristan is the opposite. He’s the very quiet snorkeler, and can stay at the surface for a long time watching the fish, and then suddenly dive deep below the surface to check it out. If he sees something he wants me to see he will swim quietly next to me and point where he wants me to go. Both Tristan and Tessa dive really well, and if the current seems ok, we will let Tessa take her lifejacket off for a few minutes so she can dive down closer to the reef with Tristan. All the snorkeling really tires them out and when we got back to the boat, we sat on the front deck for awhile to watch the sunset. Later I made a big dinner and the kids went to bed early.
We took an early dinghy ride the next morning to Rocky Dundas. There are some caves here which you can go into. At this time of day they were still underwater and with a strong current running, Dan and I decided against going in, so we snorkeled off the rocks for awhile. When we got back to Alegria, and were preparing to leave, the guy from the big 60 foot motor yacht EXIT came over in his dinghy with his two dogs. He told us to be sure to take the kids to the Sea Aquarium and we told him we had. I asked him where he was going and he said his wife and him were down from Florida for the month. He seemed surprised we were heading south. He was very nice and asked us if needed anything, like ice or anything, and we said no. He gave us a great compliment when he said it looked like we were pretty self sufficient. And we really are. The solar panels do a great job of electricity for us, the generator is there if we want to run anything special and not use our batteries, the water maker is wonderful and makes great water and the freezer doesn’t make but will keep ice as well as doing a great job of keeping food cold and frozen. The refrigerator makes an excellent “cool” spot for the vegetables and our vitamins. We have a big supply of books and DVD’s and an incredible view out our windows every day. What more do we need?