Life is Really Swell on Veda L as we have found our "Bahama/Exuma home" again on Great Exuma not far from Georgetown. Is it any wonder they named this area Emerald Bay? The Marina at Emerald Bay is The Top Destination for boaters who want to have a home base that has every possible amenity, yet feel like they are in a small town atmosphere due to the friendly staff that will not let their day end until all details are taken care of for their guests. Check out their new web site to see where Veda L. is living for a few weeks! www.MarinaAtEmeraldBay.com They were closed for a few months, but it made us happy to see that the slips are filling up fast! If we did not have The Marina at Emerald Bay in the Exumas to leave our boat (in great hands!) it would be nearly impossible for us to make trips home for visits with our family.

Our Cat Buddy, (don't tell him that...he thinks he is a little boy in a cat suit!) asked Ericka if she would join him at the bar for a Kitty Cocktail. Wahoo's is a great little bar/restaurant with fabulous chowder just steps from our dock. Ericka, the office manager was kind enough to cat sit for Buddy while we took a two week trip home, that was two years ago and they have been friends ever since. Ericka lives on Great Exuma but this year has taken a job managing a private island, their new office manager came over from the Four-Seasons Resort and is highly skilled in public relations.

When we came back to Emerald Bay/Exumas after a 2 week excursion to Cat Island, Rum Cay and other Cays nearby we were greeted by Shavago, Ericka and Leonard, shown with Capt Bob...they brought down two Kaliks in brown paper wrappers as a special "welcome home Uncle Bob!" Yes, they have become family to us! It has been two years since we have been here due to health issues and the death of my Mother, but we had a sort of family reunion as we walked into the office to see all the smiling faces, and so great to see the upgrades that have taken place in our absence. Wow.....

A full moon over Compass Cay brings beauty and remembrances of our neighbor Jeanne Lyner, who was such a major part of so many lives, we are reminded of her every full moon as that is when she left us.

Rachaels Bubblebath is what they call this natural pool that gets ocean waves coming in thru a cut, this is a picture as the bubbles dissipated....otherwise you would not have seen me! The wave comes in, pushes out out about 10 feet and bubbles up all around you, a fun ride, and cold as the ocean water hits the warm pool water. Sea Urchins cling to the rock walls so we must be careful where we step. Heaven. Just Heaven.

This is the rotten dirty scoundrel posing as a beautiful fish that you would never want to kill. If you look closely however, you will see 3 prongs sticking out of his left side, eat a baby scrawled file fish will you? Not if we can help it! Bob pulled the file fish from the poisonous Lion fish mouth and let it go...just in time we hope!

Ahhh, beauty. Simple Queen Angel fish beauty. I think she is smiling at me.
Reef at Compass Cay. Google Compass Cay, a slice of heaven for sure. We are the only boat here now for 3 days, we have the place to ourselves. Did I say heaven?

Here is the beautiful and poisonous Lionfish that we found on the reef that we enjoyed yesterday, the Giant Sea Anemone below is one of my favorites with the purple tips waving at you!

The hunter walking down the beach to swim out to the reef to search for dinner...lobster or grouper, he is not choosy. As it turned out, the lobster he had his eye on disapeared while he went a little further out; do not miss opportunity is his mantra of the day!

This is me, reading a New Yorker magazine and looking out into the Atlantic looking for my husbands fins and snorkel. I stood in the shallow water, read a page...find husband...read a page...find husband...I would panic if I did not see him for over 3 minutes, started imagining things...horrid things.

Just one of the very cool little additions that Tucker has added to his island, on Crescent Beach. Today Veda L is the only boat in the marina, we even tended the office for awhile so Tucker could go to Staniel Cay to get a haircut. I started my day today by running all the trails around the island, took me 45 minutes and have no idea how far, but a lot of the sand trail was high above Crescent Beach, so it was a beautiful run.

The "no-seeum's" are out in full force, as the marina is surrounded by mangroves. We sprayed ourselves heavily so we could sit out on the bow to watch the sunset. A beautiful, still night. We took our canoe up the mangrove creek today to look for little fish, conch, etc in the "nursery"/shallow warm waters. No words to describe the water, reflections, and fish.

We prepare to leave Warderick Wells and I just had to take one more picture that really shows the channel that the current had "dredged" over the years creating this perfect mooring field for boaters. The eastern shore of the Cay is home to reefs formed by stromotolites, the oldest evidence of life on earth. These fragile, flat gray reefs date back to 3.5 billion years and were thought to be extinct until discovered in 1983.

Today we leave for Compass Cay (Key), weather is great and it will only be about an hour ride, our friend Tucker owns the place and has called us on the radio to say "will be good to have you back!" Bob is anxious to get on the edge of the Sea Park so we can cross over the boundary in order to do some "reef shopping" for dinner! Our Thanksgiving Day treat was to dive a reef that we had not been on for awhile within Warderick Wells, this good sized grouper was just settling into a perfect sized serving bowl...according to Bob's fish fantasy! This area is a spot that I call the Fan Garden as there are every variety of sea fans and corals that you can imagine.

This Bad Boy is a Lion fish, they damage reefs and are not indigenous to the Bahamas, however......as beautiful as butterflies as their fins flutter like feathers as they swim. We only saw one in the Sea Park two years ago, this year we have located at least 5 of them. The Park Warden may start capturing them and giving them to the government to decide if they should be given to aquariums, but they need to be removed from the Bahamian reef system.

Our Warderick Wells Cay home, as viewed from the top of Boo Boo Hill. Such an amazing phenomenon this safe "harbor" is! You can see the deep water that we sit in, about 15' deep which curves in a half moon surrounded by just enough small cays (pronounced keys) to give shelter. At low tide we still have plenty of water beneath us but we look out at just a couple feet of water covering the white sand bottom giving us a view of the lightest aquamarine waters! We dropped some scraps into the water after our Thanksgiving dinner and had a really display of jumping Jacks...the Horse-Eye Jack variety that is! Fish look about 25% larger underwater, but they had to be at least 2' long.