I left Orange Hill Inn yesterday but not until after a visit with a couple of friends from the Yoga Retreat. Ivan and Hailey came out to see me and have breakfast first thing in the morning. We all took a walk on the beach to Travellers'Rest where we stopped for coffee (Ivan) and ginger ale. We had to talk them into serving us because they weren't open yet.
I am now in Warderick Wells. Arrived yesterday evening. There was a group of 4 boaters from the northern anchorage (at Warderick Wells) who met me at the Staniel Cay landing strip. My Flamingo flight from Nassau left right on time at 3:00pm and landed at about 3:40pm. There were just two of us in the 5-seater twin-engine plane along with the pilot. The skies were perfectly clear, the water and winds were calm and I could not have asked for a better day to fly over the Exuma Cays. I took many photos. Hopefully I'll have my photo gallery up and running soon so that I can post pitures fir you all to enjoy.
The deputy warden, Tom, and his wife Judy had all the staff and volunteers up to the warden's house for supper... homemade pizza... very nice welcome. I met all the people I'll be sharing accommodations with. I'm the only woman. There are 2 members of the Defence Force stationed here at all times. A new pair are sent every two weeks. Smitty and Knowles, who are here now, will be replaced in a week. There is a new volunteer who joined us this evening, Larry. He has been working on a refitted shrimpboat for the past 5 months doing research and installing mooringsfor a Florida based diving company. There are a few other volunteers as well but they all live aboard their boats in the anchorage. Larry and his former crew mates Andy, Andrew and Danny were also at dinner last night.
Today I started off with an easy day. I sanded and painted some hatch covers for a boat that is being fixed, painted and rebuilt... it took about 1 1/2 hours. Tomorrow I'll be painting the deck with the same non-skid I used this morning. This afternoon we went to the shrimpboat to get about 10 94-pound bags of cement for work being done around the wardens station here. That was an easy job too because we had to wait 'til the guys finished their work on the mooring they were working on. That meant sitting around on the deck for an hour or so. Loading the bags on our boat took about 10 minutes and we were off. Then we went to trash-island to dump and burn trash. That also took an hour... my work there took about 5 minutes.
Then I took a walk to Boo Boo Hill with Smitty. We spent about 15 minutes there, mostly admiring the view. Then we returned to the station where Knowles had been preparing supper. We ate just minutes after arriving back. The guys now have "Meet Joe Black" in the VCR.
Warderick Wells is still one of the most beautiful places on earth. I wish everyone of you were here to enjoy it. This is truly a place that proves this planet is worth saving. Well, that's it for tonight. I'm off to take a shower and get to bed.
Posted by gailene at January 10, 2003 07:03 PM