Warderick Wells - Exuma Land and Sea Park

Warderick Wells - Exuma Land and Sea Park

Tuesday 15th - Wednesday 16th April, 2025

Warderick Wells is home to the Headquarters of the Exuma Land and Sea Park. We first came here in 2013 and were astonished by the beauty of the area. We returned for a brief visit on our way north in 2018 and spending a few days here on this trip has been a high priority. The park has two mooring fields in this area, both on the west (banks) side of the island of Warerick Wells. One is to the south near Emerald Rock (Gloria described this in the previous blog entry) and one to the north near the park Headquarters. It’s only a half mile dinghy ride between the two, but it’s a five mile trip to go around sand banks in any cruising boat, as the channel is too narrow and shallow to go directly. The northern mooring field is a horseshoe shaped channel and in my opinion is the premier place to be, but it is understandably popular. It’s a first come - first served system and you need to have an assigned mooring before you enter the channel. The Park Service coordinate this and can be reached on VHF radio or cell phone from afar, and they will clarify whether or not there is a mooring available immediately. If not, a common situation, they will put you on a waiting list for the following day. We called on Monday morning from Staniel Cay, but there was no space available that day and so we added our name to the list and went into the Emerald Rock mooring field for one night.

At 9 am, the park ranger pipes up on channel 9 of the VHF radio to ask if any boats have left or are planning on leaving that day. He then figures out what space is available and assigns moorings based on length, draft and priority on the waiting list. On Tuesday morning we were told that we could proceed round to the north mooring field immediately. It took us almost an hour to get there, but the tide was near high and the current slack, so it was easy to pick up the mooring line. The moorings are set up in the narrow horseshoe and you face north or south along the channel depending on the state of the tide. During transition, there is only about 10 feet of space behind the boat before it’s shallow enough to stand on the sand bank!

It’s a truly magical place with wonderful colors in the water. The channel itself is about 10 feet deep and appears as an intense turquoise blue. The areas around dry out to sand banks at low tide and so you have a range of colors from blue to green to yellow to pink as the depth changes. There are a large network of trails on the island of Warderick Wells and on Tuesday we hiked over the Causeway trail, up Hutia Hill* and over to Exuma Sound. We returned via Boo Boo Hill, a tremendous viewpoint where you can see both the deep-water Exuma Sound to the east and the shallow-water banks to the west. It is also the location where sailors deposit pieces of driftwood with their boat names painted on. 

This morning we snorkeled the “Rangers Garden”. We needed to do this at slack tide to avoid strong currents and we got it more or less right. What an exceptional snorkel! The water was crystal clear and we saw lots of beautiful fish, including Nassau grouper, Queen and Grey Angelfish, Rock Beauties, Ocean Triggerfish and a school of large Houndfish. We also came close to a small turtle. However, the highlight was swimming with a school of 12 Spotted Eagle Rays. They were really large (6 ft+ with tails that were at least as long as the body) and gliding right by us, so gracefulyl and apparently not concerned with our presence. 

I still think Warderick Wells is one of the most beautiful places that I have ever been.

• Hutia are small rodents that are endemic to this island.

Mike

24 23.834 N, 76 37.961 W

Exuma Land and Sea Park Headquarters - Warderick Wells. (This image is a panorama of wide angle shots and the perspective is not true. The water on the left is the north mooring field and the water on the right is the small channel through to the south mooring field)

The north mooring field from the Park Headquarters

The Causeway trail, Warderick Wells

On route to Boo Boo Hill

Boo Boo Hill with a collection of driftwood with teh names of visiting boats inscribed. The north mooring field is on the left and Exuma sound on the right, connected by Warderick Cut (hidden behind the hill).

The view out to Exuma Sound under calm conditions. (Less than a mile from the shore the sound is thousands of feet deep.)

A curly tailed lizard on top of some old Brain Coral