A Fool's Gambit

We moved on to Hawksbill Cay (anchoring here) after a couple days at Norman's Cay. This was the first island we visited in the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park. That's a roughly 150 square mile park in the Exumas which is set aside as a nature preserve. So we're hoping to see some cool flora and fauna.

We didn't see much on Hawksbill. Some nice views, but that's about it. They were clearing some of the non-native pine trees from the island. Good for them. I saw a few curly-tailed lizards scampering about, and I saw a pair of white-tailed tropic birds. I'm itching for some snorkeling, but there hasn't been that much to see for a while.

We didn't stay long before moving on to Warderick Wells Cay (here), home of the main office for the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park. This island was pretty cool. It's named for the natural 'wells' all around the island. There was a pretty impressive blow hole up on a cliff. There were hutias (big rats), but they were smaller than the banana rats (also called hutias) in Cuba.

I feel like I'm just listing a bunch of stuff, with no real connection or story line. But that's kind of how it's been happening. It's just lots and lots of interesting things that I see briefly and then it's time to move on, and I don't really know much in the way of details. So it doesn't make a very entertaining read, I would think.

Anyway, from Warderick Wells we went south to Compass Cay, which was outside of the park boundaries, so we could fish again if we wanted to. But we weren't entirely done seeing things in the park, as you'll find out in the next installment.