Great Loop Adventures Aboard Next Chapter: Exuma Land and Sea Park Where Pigs Swim but do not Fly

On Friday morning we left Norman Island anchorage and headed 24 miles to Warderick Wells Cay in Exuma Land and Sea Park, a Bahamian National Park. Once again we needed a weather window to make the final run to Great Exuma Island as we would have to run on the outside of the Bank. Based on the forecast it looked liked we would have one in three to four days. As we arrived into Warderick Wells we thought we had seen beautiful water but when we got there our jaws just dropped. We have been to some pretty spectacular beaches over the years but I must say the scenes here top anything we have ever seen.

On a calm day it is almost disorientating as the boat looks like it floating in air. We traveled with Liming and met up with another Looper boat Unplugged. The crew was John and Tanya from Montreal, Canada. John is a hoot reminding me of my two French Canadian roommates during Chiropractic college days. Once we settled on a mooring ball we all mounted the amphibious assault vehicles and headed to explore. First we had to register our arrival at the park office. Then we headed off to hike up Boo Boo Hill where cruisers have erected this crazy monument where they write their boat name on an old board and screw it onto this pile.

There is hundreds of them. The view was 360 degrees from the Bank to the Atlantic Ocean. Once back to the boats we had an extended Friday night special extended happy hour aboard Liming. We joked that on the loop every evening is Friday night and everyday is Saturday. You do truly loose track of the days of the week.

Saturday morning we all headed 26 miles down to Staniel Cay where the famous Thunderball Grotto is located. The colors of the water stretched from a deep cobalt blue to pool blue to lime green ending in white in the shallows where the depth was a foot or so. I can sit all day and just aimlessly stare at it. Just amazing.

We all did a group run to the grocery store to grab some provisions and get some dinghy fuel. After that the tide was just right to explore the Grotto. Some of you may recall the 1967 James Bond movie, Thunderball. One of the major scenes was filmed in the Grotto that we were able to explore. To get into the grotto you can swim underwater in these small short tunnels.

On the outside the coral was beautiful, inside it was loaded with fish. Look up images of the grotto as we did not have a underwater camera to take any pictures. Sue found a sea turtle that I worried was going to lead her out to sea. That evening we did a dinghy raft up just floating aimlessly in the current where ever it wanted to take us. Sunday morning my new Canadian friend stopped by and asked if I wanted to I go spear some dinner.

I of course obliged and off we went. Spear fishing is no easy task. Somehow they are keenly aware when something pointy is aimed at them. We did bag a couple of small fish but nothing to write home about. We went back to the boats and picked up the girls who had packed a picnic lunch. We all headed off to swimming Pig island where you guessed it, pigs will come off the beach and swim up to your dinghy and look for food.

So many years ago this local decided to raise pigs on this island. They would roam the beach and when boaters would come ashore they would feed them. Well it now has become a major tourist stop. Now we had a little trouble with one of them. Remember the picnic that we had onboard? Well one of the porkers decided to help himself and made off with a bag of potato chips. You also have to keep an eye on the pigs as they have been known to bite people to get them to drop the food they have. Personally I was not a fan of the whole thing but hey it was pretty unique. After that we headed of to a small patch of Elkhorn Coral we found earlier spear fishing. It was beautiful. When we got back to the boat we decided to make to late run 20 miles south to Farmers Cay. We wanted to reduce the the travel time the next day to Georgetown. We had a very peaceful night on anchor with a great sunset to cap the day off.