Park rangers

Location: Cambridge Cay, Exumas
Position: N24 18.185 W076 32.418

We have really been enjoying our duties as volunteer park rangers. A typical day begins with getting up at 6:30 to listen to the weather on the SSB radio, followed by a leisurely breakfast and a bit of tidying up.

Then, if the tide is right, we go snorkeling on one of the beautiful reefs around. If it’s not, we’ll try and get in a walk before it gets too hot.

The park warden usually stops by in the late morning or early afternoon to see how we’re doing, collect the mooring fees (and our trash – one of the real bonuses of this job!!), maybe even drop off a couple of DVDs so we can watch a movie on the computer in the evening. While we’re waiting, we usually try to fit in a boat job or two – tinkering with a recalcitrant outboard, refinishing a locker door, maintaining the water maker, or performing miscellaneous other maintenance and repair jobs. As we do this we chat and listen to the ham and/or VHF radio. Once he arrives, the warden usually sits and chats with us for a bit, then heads out and leaves us to our own devices again.

There’s supposed to be an old path from the southern beach to another beach on the seaward side of the island. We’ve spent a few afternoons searching and think we may have found it on our last visit. The next step is to see if we can follow it to the other side of the island, overgrown as it is, and if so, to begin clearing and marking it so others after us can enjoy it and continue to improve it.

We’ve tried to organize a happy hour on a small sandy islet near us, but it’s pretty exposed and the wind hasn’t been cooperating. Most evenings we manage to get together with another boat or two for happy hour.

On Sunday the weather got a bit windy and squally so the mooring field filled up quickly. With 14 moorings to manage we spent most of the afternoon dinghying around in the chop writing receipts, trying to keep straight who was who, when they arrived, and how much they owed. Wow, there’s a lot of pressure involved in this job!! We earned our keep on Sunday, for sure – must have worked at least 2 hours!!

Evenings that we don’t get together with other boaters are usually spent making dinner and doing the dishes, followed by dominos, cards, reading, watching the occasional movie, or just chatting and enjoying each other’s company.

Most days we have one or two boats arriving and leaving. When this occurs, we leisurely visit each and chat, spending the rest of the day walking, swimming, snorkeling, doing boat jobs, reading, playing dominos etc.