We really love it here. It’s so beautiful and the water 17 feet below our keel is so clear. They have really done a great job with the park. The park is the first land and sea park in the world and it covers 176 square miles. On Warderick Wells, there are 4 miles of marked trails. The trials are really nice, very well marked and easy to follow. You can tell they have put a lot of work and pride into the clearing, marking and maintaining of them. At the front of the park is a skeleton of a 52 foot sperm whale that was killed by eating plastic. We know there is a big debate going on right now in the States about plastic drinking bottles. You would not believe all the plastic bottles we see washed up on the beaches. When you see a magnificent creature like this, lost to a water-bottle, it really drives the point home that we need to make a change.

The park headquarters are staffed by Judy and Tom. They sell ice, books, have a book exchange and rent DVD’s. Judy and Tom are volunteer staffers. They stay here, for several weeks or longer, and oversee the park. It sounds like a great opportunity. They live in a separate building on the park grounds. It’s very remote, but if you are looking to get away from it all, it sounds like the ideal spot. Your surroundings couldn’t be much more remote.

The office has some great books on reef creatures. reef fish and reef coral that we buy to update our library. These are a must as you see so much wildlife here it’s a shame not to know what they are. Judy helped us find a picture of a snake like creature I took a picture of back in the Abacos. Turns out it is a Gold Spotted Eel and is a member of the Moray family of eels. It says it is unusual to spot in the Bahamas so we count ourselves lucky that we not only saw it but that I have a picture.
Because the current here is so strong, and to protect the bottom, all boats have to be on a mooring ball. That’s fine with us. It makes life a little easier. We have some great fish under our boat, some very large Horse Eyed Jacks and one crazy Sharksucker. Sharksuckers have this unique flat suction cup on top of their heads that allows them to attach themselves to bigger fish. He enjoyed the shade under our boat and the occasional Cheerio. The rays were easy to see in the clear water.

We took an afternoon stroll up Boo Boo Hill. This is basically a memory rock where people paint their boat names and dates on driftwood and shells and leave them there. The date for most of the memorabilia was 2006 and a majority from 2007, so I am sure Mother Nature reclaims this hilltop quite often. We followed on to the unique Blow hole. This was a blast. The waves came in far below us and sent a rush of air up through two holes on top of the hill. The air is extremely strong and emits a huge roar and rush of wind hard enough to blow your hat off . We laughed so hard as the air blew up the kids shirts turning them in to “musclemen” as they called themselves. I put a small piece of brush over the top of one of the holes and we had fun trying to catch it as the wind blew it high in the sky.

After we left the blowhole, we followed the trail down to the beach. The waves were stronger here, but the beach was surprisingly clean. There weren’t the usual shoe pile and plastic bottles to sort through. They do a really good job of keeping it clean. This is definitely where the volunteers come in handy.

Later that evening, Dan and I took books and the kids took their DVD player and we sat up on the deck of the Park Headquarters. There were some comfortable chairs with a great view. It was very relaxing until it started to get dark and the bugs started to bite. That was our cue to leave. As we started packing everything up, the Royal Bahamas Defense patrol boat tied up to the dock. They are stationed here and live in the back of the park headquarters building while park rangers live in their own building further in the park. They said hello as they walked by even though it was so dark we could barely see one another. As we headed down to the dinghy dock, one of them was still on the back of the boat throwing out some scraps to the fish. The white tipped reef shark was easy to see as he swam quickly in and out of the light coming from under the boat. We wisely waited until the shark had swam away before we started our dark dinghy ride back to our boat.