Shroud Cay Bahamas

Monday 1 April dawned bright and sunny and once again, frustratingly, with a very light southeasterly air.  So, we motored the two and a half hours from Warderick Wells to the northern end of Shroud Cay, where we anchored in yet more crystal-clear turquoise water.

Entering the shallow channel that wends its way across Shroud Cay to the Exuma Sound side

We had been recommended visiting Shroud Cay to take the dinghy through the mangrove channels that run across the island to the Exuma Sound side.  So we inflated the dinghy and set off on our voyage of exploration.  The channel started off quite wide and relatively deep and whilst it remained fairly wide throughout, in places it became far too shallow to navigate by outboard motor.  At these time my keen crew threw themselves over the side and, whilst I raised the engine, they pushed the dinghy through.  Happily, the channel never entirely dried out so I didn’t need to get my feet wet and assist with portage!

The channel is shallow, in places too shallow to proceed under outboard motor, but for the most part the water is clear and warm so jumping in to push the dinghy along is in no way a hardship

It took a surprisingly long time to make our way along the meandering channel to the eastern side of the island and, disappointingly, the mangroves never really closed in – we always had a much wider, more open vista than we had imagined would be the case.  We saw relatively little in the way of animal life too – perhaps that was just a factor of the time of day.  But we did see a few turtles and some jellyfish and, most disappointingly of all, four jetskiers racing along in total contravention of the ‘No jetskies’ and ‘No wake’ signs liberally scattered around the entrances to the channel.

There was a sizable current sweeping through the cut from the Exuma Sound, hence the sandy bottom has been scoured out deeply

After about an hour we reached the eastern side of the cay.  Here the channel is scoured deeply by the incoming tide….

Looking out across the cut and the entrance bar and out to Exuma Sound on the eastern side of Shroud Cay

Nicky overlooking the cut from the other side 

….and a short distance offshore there is a sand bar almost the whole way across the entrance.  We walked along the beach to level with the bar, swam across to it and then rode the current back to our start point.  Great fun!

And then we swam across to the southern shore and climbed the hillock on that side for views down on the east side of the cay…

…the cut….

Looking back across the small channels we’d brought the dinghy through

…and back along the channel we had dinghied along.

Swimming training against the inflowing current

We had some excellent snorkelling on the coral heads close to where BV was anchored but there
were far too many Lionfish for the health of the reef system

And back at BV we found a huge barracuda
sheltering in her shadow

We returned to BV via the short-cut to the northern anchorage and stopped off at a few of the coral heads for some snorkelling.  It was one of the better sites we had visited and we saw a wide variety of reef fish, though a disappointing number of Lionfish.  And back at BV we found that a very large Barracuda had taken up temporary residence in her shadow.

Another fabulous sunset

And, after a long afternoon’s exploring, swimming and fish watching, we rounded off the day with sundowners to an accompanying and suitably fabulous sunset. 

Shroud Cay, Bahamas