Day 46
Will continue south today in the Exuma Land and Sea Park. We hope to visit most of the 15 larger cays as we travel the 22nm to the park's southern border.
After securing a mooring for our next stop, Warderick Wells, we loosed our lines on the mooring and headed south to Hawksbill Cay. Was a long trip of just under 5 miles!!
Hawksbill Cay is a 2.5 mile island just south of Shroud Cay. We anchored on the north end of the island with three other boats. We can enjoy the long crescent beach between two rocky points. Nice view from the boat.
After lunch, we splashed the dinghy and headed around the point to explore the trail across the island, from the Exuma Banks where we anchored to Exuma Sound.
We beached the dinghy and found the trail head easily as it was festooned with buoys and lines.
The trail was well marked with all kinds of odds and ends that have ended up on the beach.
We knew the trail led to the ruins of a 1785 cotton plantation from the first wave of loyalist leaving America due to the revolution.
Was fascinating to walk among the buildings and rock fences from so long ago. There were two larger structured of rock with mortar and a smaller structure just of stacked limestone.
The path led further up so we kept going and were greeted with a spectacular view.
We retraced our steps and found another off shoot to the path which led to more ruins. On this path we found more walls from an additional building and two natural wells, now overgrown with vegetation.
This pic below is looking down the well.
Lastly we came to a shell mound of conch shells near what could have been another well,
We retraced our steps back along this trail, until we found the trail that led to the beach. Walked through the brush for quite a while guided by the trail markers, until we could hear the waves from Exuma Sound.
We were greeted first with a view of the Sound, then descended to the beach.
It was a small beautiful beach with spectacular water color and a rocky shore line beyond the beach.
Enjoying our time on the beach, we then turned back to the trail to go back to the dinghy. Along a curly tail lizard greeted us.
Our adventured ended up being a 1.0 mile dinghy ride and about a three mile hike up and down the rocky path and hills filled with wonderful scenery and a little history! We certainly got our exercise today!
