A Walk Up Boo Boo Hill

One of our favorite cruising grounds in all the world is the Exuma chain in the Bahamas that stretches south from Nassau on New Providence to George Town on Great Exuma. The hundreds of islands are mostly unpopulated and are pristine, with amazing beaches, mangrove swamps, reefs to dive on and an abundance of wildlife. If you want to get far from the madding crowd, just 100 miles from Miami, then the Exumas are the place for you. All the major charter companies have bases on New Providence, so you don’t need to sail your own boat to get there. But, each winter, in non-pandemic years, hundreds of cruisers do sail to the Exumas and end up anchoring off Stocking Island across the small sound from George Town creating a cruising community unlike any other we’ve seen. On the way there, most cruisers stop at the Exuma Land and Sea Park which has its headquarters on Warderick Wells. The park prohibits fishing, lobstering or the disturbance of wildlife so you see the Exumas in its natural state. A short walk from the anchorage is Boo Boo Hill which is a kind of cruisers’ shrine. For decades cruisers have carved their boat names and a date on a piece of driftwood and added it to the huge collection. When you spend a little time on Boo Boo Hill, you will see the names of many famous cruising boats and you will see more than a few that have multiple dates carved on them from repeat visits. Cruisers don’t often leave much of a record of where they have been and what they have done; we tend to leave a clean wake. But there are a few such shrines around the world: Horta in the Azores,  Post Office Bay in the Galapagos, Dick’s Place on Mololo LaiLai in Fiji, and Boo Boo Hill. Standing there amid the driftwood you get a real sense of how large and vibrant and adventurous our cruising community really is.