Day 46. May 7. On to Hawksbill Cay. MIles 4.9. Total Miles 700.8

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!

Reflections on the Bahamas

Reflections on the Bahamas Over the past 10 weeks, we have traveled through Abaco, Eleuthera and Exuma Islands and enjoyed the hospitality of the Bahamian people. We have learned all about the islands, its unique geography - limestone, caves, blue holes and chalk cliffs; and colorful history-pirates and rum running, salt ponds and cotton plantations, boat building and wrecking/salvage. Traveling over 1300 miles through narrow cuts and wide bays to vast depths of ocean, we negotiated the islands and found safe harbors, calm coves for anchoring, bays filled with moorings and marinas large and small. This trip required us to pay close attention to the weather, the tides and currents as we traveled between and through the islands. The Bahamian people are warm and friendly, willing to give us rides, advice and directions, as well as some secret recipes!! We enjoyed hiking trails, walking the beaches, snorkeling the coral rocks and reefs, discovering ruins and ol...

June 4-5. Day 63-64. On to Cape May New Jersey. 53.4nm. Total 1534 miles.

Left Delaware City at 5:35am to be able to take advantage of the strong currents going with us while traversing Delaware River and Delaware Bay. The Delaware River goes south about 15 miles and flows into the Delaware Bay. As we travel south, New Jersey is to the east and Delaware is to our west. We are traveling just outside the shipping channel and are really moving at 10.9 knots. That is three knots faster than we normally travel, as the outgoing tides are pushing us along. Nice to have Mother Nature helps us save on fuel. The Delaware River is about 8 miles wide so there is plenty of room for the freighters and the pleasure boats. So far, we have not encountered any commercial traffic, but there is a large freighter behind us that will eventually pass us as they travel at 14 knots. The Delaware Bay proper varies from 23-29 miles wide and 26 miles long. There are five lighthouses on the Delaware marking the shipping channel. We went by Ship J...

Day 98. 2nd year. August 27. On to Manistee. Miles 25 Total miles. 3910.

We weighed anchor on a sunny 50 degree morning. So we put on our sweatshirts and drove from below as we left Frankfort. Going through Frankfort’s channel and breakwater we encountered a few intrepid fisherman and further along as we cleared the breakwater there must have been over a hundred fishing boats. Almost like playing bumper cars, but with boats. Had to negotiate a path between them as the fishing boats were all trolling fishing lines behind them. We were still seeing fishermen 4 miles south of Frankfort. These guys sure take their fishing tournaments seriously! The shoreline that we pass heading south are still sand dunes bluffs some as tall as 200 feet. As we travel, we pass the small town of Arcadia and Portage Lake, each situated on an inland lake which is connected to Lake Michigan by a dredged channel. Interesting to note that the dredged channels were originally small rivers connecting the inland lakes to Lake Michigan. As we passe...

Crustacean Travels

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