We have had a pleasant trip so far along the Exumas.  We started in Warderick Wells and were very excited to visit the famed Exuma Land and Sea Park. We started the day with Bob cooking a great breakfast and listening to Chris Parker’s weather forecast. After coffee we set off in the dinghy to head to the Park Visitor center and start exploring. The ride was pretty lumpy as the water was a bit choppy! After checking in, the park ranger gave us a trail map and a reef map. We decided to start with hiking and took the causeway trail. It was an interesting trail over coral and through the mangroves. We hiked up to Hutia Highway but thankfully didn’t see any hutia! Hutia are the only mammal native to The Bahamas. It’s basically a large rat! We then followed the trail down to Butterfly beach which was beautiful. We followed the causeway trail back to the office and then set off in the other direction to follow the trail to the blow holes and to Boo Boo Hill. The view from the cliffs down towards the blow holes was so cool! We then hiked up to the top of Boo Boo Hill and saw the spot where boats leave their name to show they were there! Some were on driftwood, some on shells, one on a wine bottle even! We laughed to see our friends from S/V Loka’s recent contribution too! We hiked back down and decided to try and head over to the snorkel area to see if it was calm enough to snorkel. Unfortunately it was still pretty rough so we opted to head over to Rendezvous Beach instead for a bit. We spent a nice hour or two reading and relaxing there before heading back to Meraviglia.

On Sunday, we decided to move over to the Cambridge Cay mooring field in anticipation of some winds and weather expected at the beginning of the week.  We had a nice trip over to Cambridge Cay and had success at picking up our first mooring ball- yay! On Monday, we awoke to a beautiful calm morning in Cambridge Cay. We decided to take a pre coffee hike and took the dinghy over to the beach. We had a nice hike over to Bell Rock and then up the ridge. There were many great overlooks, looking down on rock formations and the mooring field. There was also a surprising amount of color with the flora and fauna- greens, yellows, and reds.

We hiked back down the ridge to the beach and decided to walk to the other end of the beach to look at a shipwreck that was in view up against the rocks. The beach was littered with debris from the wreck including wood from the boat, emergency water packets, cracker packets, some backpacks, and some random pairs of shoes. Because so much was still washing up on the beach it seemed that it must have been a fairly recent wreck. On looking at the actual boat, it was clearly homemade with a wooden mast. Bob and I gathered some of the debris but there was still more washing ashore as we were leaving. 

Later back onboard Meraviglia, I read on the Bahamas cruiser forum that the wreck had been there less than a week. It was later shared on the forum that it was a Haitian sloop smuggling 50 undocumented immigrants,  46 adult male, 2 females and 2 children. It was intercepted by the  Bahamas Marine officers but no more was shared about what happened with the passengers. They also shared a picture of it before they were approached by the Bahamian Marine officers. I did a search online and found two stories validating what had been shared on the forum.

50 Haitian Migrants Intercepted

 It definitely highlights the desperation to escape when the immigrants were willing to risk their life on a homemade wooden boat to escape the chaos in Haiti right now. There was an analysis in the New York Times on Tuesday about how the rival gangs united to force the prime minister’s resignation and the ongoing violence, especially in the capital of Port-au-Prince. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/14/world/americas/haiti-gangs-ariel-henry.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

 It is easy to see how immigrants may feel their choice to board a potentially unsafe vessel for a dangerous journey is their only option. With so many areas of conflict around the world, it is often easy to overlook ongoing situations like what is happening in Haiti when it does not get as much media coverage.  I would encourage anyone who wants to help to research organizations providing help on the ground directly to those impacted by the violence. One organization is Doctors without Borders,

https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/?_gl=1*1fq4nb9*_ga*MTMxMzYxNDYwMy4xNzEwODY5OTQy*_ga_C7EW6Q0J9K*MTcxMDg2OTk0MS4xLjEuMTcxMDg3MTA2Ni42MC4wLjA.

But there are many other organizations providing aid.  While we are enjoying the beauty of all that we have been fortunate to see and experience in the Bahamas, this was a stark reminder that there are always people in need who need our help and our prayers. Beauty and sadness can definitely coexist.