Exumas

 It's dry season in the Bahamas, but we get three days of rain while hanging out in Nassau. Then south across the Yellow Bank to Highborne, with its many coral heads which require a sharp lookout for part of the run. But the sun is bright and the water clear, so we have no problem.

Across the Yellow Bank

Each plays a role that fits

Glued to charts and camera

Or dancing o're the bow.

The danger here is coral heads

Which lurk beneath the waves

Massive blocks of limestone

Send a ship to Davy Jones.

Kristen's in her element

With Autopilot, sonar, GPS and more 

Plus a camera mounted on the mast

Gives digital control.

Gary wears his PFD

Tethered to the rail

Keeps an eager lookout

For colors tell a tale.

Sand shows up cerulean

Grass is greenish gray

Coral almost black and so

Between them we sashay

Athena flies her canvas

Bouncing o're the waves

Showing off her sass 

For all who catch a gaze.

Highborne is a quiet island, about twenty boats in the anchorage, and an inviting beach bookended by gnarly limestone outcrops. Stunted palms and sea grape and other xerophilic plants fill the interior. There's a few trails that lead back, and we're hoping one will lead to the road that runs the length of the island. But each one is choked with brush within a short distance. One was quite interesting, as it passed a few sinkholes, about 3 meters across and three deep, which they call 'banana holes' here. Early settlers would make use of the well decomposed leaf litter at the bottom to plant banana. One of the holes had been developed as a well. It was deeper, below water table, and had at least a half meter of fresh water, four meters down from the surface. Later we learn that sinkholes have been developed throughout these islands as the local fresh water supply.

Onward to Shroud Cay. Mostly we've been seeing an aquatic desert. The water is sooo clear and beautiful, but that's partly because there's no nutrients. Shroud is different. This island is a huge mangrove marsh ringed by limestone outcrops, where the tide fills the marsh and drains it twice a day. We spend our days taking the dinghy up some of the numerous creeks deep into the mangrove. Two young reef shark, numerous sea turtles, long tailed tropic birds, stingray, and a heron. There's a reason this is part of the National Park. 

Nearby Hawksbill Island gives us hiking trails through Paleo beaches, up onto limestone ridges, past sinkholes and an inland vernal pool, and out onto the eastern beach, which collects an amazing amount of plastic flotsam. One of the trails brings us through the remains of a small settlement from the days of the American Revolution, when some loyalists left (were driven out of) New England and emigrated to the British owned Bahamas. 

The next day brings us to Wardwick Wells, the headquarters of the National Park. There are some lovely patch reefs with a plethora of fish, including one lionfish. These poisonous spined but colorful fish are an invasive species, originally from the western Pacific, they are now throughout the Caribbean and as far north as Long Island Sound. Later, as we chat with our neighbor on their boat, us in our dinghy, a large nurse shark swims by several times.