Golden Ones Finale, April 5-8, 2022
At this point, we had pretty much exhausted the attractions in the immediate vicinity of Staniel Cay and decided to take advantage of the favorable winds from the south to run up to Wardrick Wells in the Exuma Land and Sea Park. We've contributed some cash to the park so that we get priority access to the best mooring fields and can make reservations in advance. However, this relies on them actually reading their email and putting us on the list. They responded to my third follow-up email the day before and said they had just received it and that they would have to put us on a waiting list. We didn't get the spot in the north field that I was hoping for, so we had to settle for the Emerald Rock field. They had plenty of space and we did have a really nice sail. It was downwind and smooth and I don't think the boys spent more than a few minutes outside the salon. I was a bit concerned that the trip back was going to be a lot rougher because it was looking like the north wind would persist until after they left.
Tim and Seth managing the front of the boat!
We searched for an advertised good snorkel beach, but couldn't quite figure out which one it was even with a radio consult back to Lisa who stayed on the boat. She had a pretty good idea what the dinghy ride was likely to be like and decided she'd rather be dry and enjoy some quiet. We ended up all bashing over to the park office, since our initial plan to drop Karen and the boys at the snorkel beach was thwarted. The super-friendly office lady who took care of us and made everything run smoothly the first time we came through had been replaced by a grumpy woman who seemed a bit put out that we were bothering her by giving her some cash. We did locate some good maps and confirmed where the beach was that we were looking for. The boys seemed to think the best attraction was the various whale skeletons on display.
Stinky the Pilot Whale
I believe this whale was killed by plastic pollution. I'm really happy to support the Land & Sea Park and their efforts to conserve some of the natural character of the Exumas.
Once we identified the proper beach, we all piled back into the dinghy to head over and do some exploring. We had considered taking the hiking trails to get there and in hindsight I'm glad we didn't because the trail was very poorly marked and when I explored it later, I got completely turned around and had some trouble even identifying the trail I had just taken much less find the rest of the trail. We have a device called a "Look Bucket" which is essentially a big plastic bucket with a clear plastic bottom. It really is useful to look at things from the dinghy and has allowed us to get a good look at the anchor without actually having to go out and dive on it all the time. The boys had a good time using it to look around for fish and coral. Eventually they played some kind of hybrid of Marco Polo and Blind Man's Bluff with a bucket on their heads. They tried to convince Karen they lost the bucket, while holding it underwater. They were not as tricky as they believed.
Possibly Colin was trying to channel the tunes of Buckethead Pikes, but probably not.
Tim did some much more traditional snorkel exploration and continued his ongoing practice of making detailed recordings of various sounds of the journey. I know he got sounds of the boat moving, of the waves crashing on shore and a variety of birds and so on. I believe he is planning some kind of Phillip Glass style instrumental homage to the Bahamas. Afterwards, we headed back to the boat and the dinghy ride was fully against the waves and Karen and Tim got absolutely hammered by a few waves right over the front of the dinghy. Colin and Seth made no attempt whatsoever to contain their amusement at that and honestly I don't think I suppressed my laughter very well either. The three adults went back out to Emerald Rock for some more snorkel adventures. I just was the chase boat pilot and it turned out that loaning Tim & Karen our fins didn't work that well because they aren't quite the right size for either of them.
Although I never saw Tim use his sound samples,
Colin was doing some kind of looping or sequencing or something like that for a while.
The boys were not that keen on the complete lack of internet at Wardrick Wells and I thought there might be a mutiny for a minute. Colin announced that he was going to prepare a Dungeons & Dragons one shot based on a Bahamas theme, so that kept him busy at night. The rest of us had to content ourselves with more traditional sailing adventures, like drinking cocktails and watching the sun set. The long day of travel and snorkel and getting tossed about in the dinghy made everyone pretty tired, so we didn't make a very late night of it. However, it was perhaps the most spectacular sunset of the entire week and Tim's cocktail was on point. We had identified some kind of cranberry juice based concoction that went down very very smoothly.
There was actually even a green flash tonight, but no one is ever getting that on a photo.
The next day, I persuaded the boys that there would be cell reception atop Boo Boo Hill, so there was pretty widespread enthusiasm for the hike. It was a pretty fun hike. The only small problem was that we hadn't fully anticipated that we would have to ford a small creek. Seth had by this point managed to acquire a tiger striped sunburn on his feet due to erratic sunscreen application, so we ended up having to carry him across the water fireman style. Lisa had some blisters, but ended up just sucking it up and splashing through the creek like a soldier.
Seth doing his best impression of a visiting lord, being hoisted by his staff.
We had a good time making the hike and soon enough crested the top of Boo Boo Hill. It is traditional to leave some kind of boat sign at the top. We didn't bother to carry any such signs with us because we didn't know about all that, but there were plenty of old boards that had been worn smooth by time, sun and rain, so Colin just wrote atop a blank one that was already there.
The view from the top. Dragonfly is floating at the top left.
We continued to explore, seeking out the blowholes, which weren't doing anything impressive today because the winds were pretty sedate and not pushing enough water ashore. Once again Tim and I grooved on the tidal pool action and all the little dudes swimming about inside them. Once again, Colin refused to acknowledge the genius that is Rush.
Maybe you had to be there. It was cool.
If you guessed that we drank cocktails, went snorkeling and watched the sun set, you would be right. What do you want from me?
Honestly, the Boo Boo Hill boat sign pile is pretty much an eyesore
that probably doesn't belong in a nature reserve, but tradition, I guess.
Sadly, the end of the visit was fast approaching and we had to get back to Staniel Cay to meet their flight in two days. So we got up fairly early and headed south. Unfortunately, the weather did not really improve and the boys had pretty much plowed their way through what I thought might be a lifetime supply of cookies and chips. We faced a 3-4 hour slog against the tide where we would be forced to motor the whole way. I warned everyone that it would be somewhat unpleasant and induced Colin and Seth to come out and sit where they could see the horizon in the hopes that they wouldn't get sea sick. Fortunately, it wasn't quite as bad as I feared and I don't think anyone struggled too much. When we arrived at Staniel, the current was ripping through there and we really struggled to get both sides of the cat tied up to the mooring. Eventually, I just jumped int he dinghy to attach the line, although honestly that didn't go all that well either. On the plus side, we got tied up and provided some entertainment to our neighbors.
The dinghy is in the little man made lagoon, where i dove into the water off the rocks once.
We did a little bit of shopping and exploring of the island and figuring out what the Goldens would need to do to get COVID testing for their flight home. Colin bought his sweetheart a gift and we had ice cream to break up the hot afternoon. Since we had no access to restaurants for several days and everyone had quite enough of my cooking we ate both lunch and dinner at the yacht club.
Our crew at our usual table at the Yacht Club.
After lunch and shopping, we finally got to play our Dungeons and Dragons adventure that Colin designed. It was set in the Habamas and involved an ecological disaster and of course an underwater adventure. Seth made the rookie mistake of affecting a horrible fake accent complete with lisp and none of us would let him break character the rest of the game. We managed to save the whales and restore balance to the ecosystem of the Habamas with no deaths and even managed to do it without killing everyone we came across, which is not always the case with our group. Colin made it fun for everyone, even bringing Karen in for a guest appearance as the villain's right hand woman. He also paced it so that we could finish in time for dinner! We had talked about going to a fancy place around the corner near Pig Beach, but none of us were really up for it by the time the week was over, so we just went back to the yacht club yet again.
Karen looked so swanky that I thought she might ditch us for a bilionaire on a mega-yacht,
but I guess she's resigned to her fate by now.
We stayed up late playing the Name Game. If you don't know it, some starts by naming a famous person like "Barrack Obama" then the next person in line has to name a famous person whose name starts with "O" from the last name of the previous person, like Oliver Stone. If someone responds with say "Sharon Stone" where they use the same letter for both the first and last name, it goes back to the person who just went. The adults mostly try to think of double letters and go back and forth with "Sylvester Stallone" "Sam Smith" and so on. When it goes back and forth for a while and somebody has to bail out it is kind of a moral victory. Its also interesting because the boys might name sports figures or YouTubers where the adults tend to name old musicians or actors. You also aren't allowed to repeat names, so it eventually gets a lot more difficult. At one point, Seth was really struggling to think of someone when you could see inspiration strike on his face. He immediately blurted out "Riley Reid" and Karen looked over at me to confirm this was a legit famous person, not someone he made up. I tended to be the best bet to know who he was talking about since I waste a lot of my life on YouTube. It took me a second and then I realized, "Hey, Seth, how is that you know a porn star?" I don't know what was the best part, the moment of silence as we all processed what just happened, the horrified look on Seth's face as he realized what he had done or the slightly inebriated laughter of the adults. It was a good night.
All of us wearing our best hats to try to avoid getting burnt.
Tim declared he didn't need sunscreen and hats and he was the only one who got a burn.
Seth was getting a bit stressed about the flight, so I made up some statistics to make the flight seem more dangerous, because I feel like that's my job. They all got up bright and early, confirmed that they didn't have COVID and there followed a mad rush to pack everything and try to clean up a bit. Seth ended up flying in the co-pilot seat and my efforts to stress him out failed as he got to have a fantastic ride in the best seat on the plane. Lisa and I spent a few hours cleaning and restoring the boat to its usual state and even more hours just trying to recover.
I'm not saying Seth actually had to take over the flight, but he totally could have.
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