Abandoned research center on Lee Stocking Cay

Friday 14 Feb, BHS day 46, from Rudder Cay to Lee Stocking Cay: Valentine’s Day visiting the abandoned Perry Institute for Marine Science, and hike to several wonderful beaches.

After the tide change at 2am we have very loud drums on the stern, making Glen go to the saloon to sleep for the rest of the night.
Before we depart Rudder Cay we fly the drone again in the beautiful morning light. And as we start preparing to leave, tripper boats start arriving one after another, queuing to take their tourists into the cave. We are suddenly very thankful we had the place to ourselves yesterday.

At 10am we upanchor and head back out through Rudder Cut and continue south in the deep water. The wind is 10-12kts dead on the nose, so we motor the 11 miles to Lee Stocking Cay and we use the opportunity to make some water. It’s quite a lumpy sea again, but feels less bumpy than yesterday. We head out in deeper water, over the drop-off, and attempt fishing, but no takers today, sadly. Glen wanted to treat me to a grilled fish for Valentine’s Day dinner.
An hour later we approach Adderly Cut which is narrow, but we are getting used to these cuts now, along with their strong tidal flows.

Once in, we throttle down and wait for Mahina to catch up with us and lead the way through the shallows. They’ve been here before, and despite our Navionics chart showing 1.5m, they know for a fact that we can get in there with our draft, but only at high tide. It’s high tide now and we sneak through the shallow channel behind Lee Stocking, and see 2.8m shallowest.
Once through, and next to the old research center, there’s only a tiny hole that we can anchor in, nearly 100ft across and 3m deep. Our first anchoring attempt puts us too close to one edge, where we would be aground at low tide. Second anchoring gets us set just perfect, in 3.8m of water. That should give us a few centimeters at low tide! Ian and Michelle anchor a little further in and they too anchor twice before being comfortable with their situation.

Lee Stocking is an interesting island. There used to be a big marine research center based here. The quite sophisticated setup was apparently abandoned overnight. Literally they just left, leaving everything behind: furniture, generators, fully kitted workshops and laboratories. Even a fully working decompression chamber! Michelle looked it upon google and sent us an article about the history of this place.
” The research station of the Perry Institute for Marine Science was founded by and named for John Perry, who purchased Lee Stocking Island in 1957. By 1970, he had established a thriving scientific center that included a tropical marine laboratory equipped to study the coral reefs, fisheries, ecosystems and underwater biodiversity of the region, as well as facilities to develop manned and unmanned submersibles. In 1984, the center became part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Undersea Research Program, conducting more than 600 submersible dives and tens of thousands of investigative scuba dives, making it one of the most active marine labs in the world. The submersible unit was sold to Lockheed Martin in 1989, but the institute continued its oceanographic studies and added programs for training and educating new generations of marine scientists and stewards.
Then, a few years ago (2012), its grant ran out, the funding dried up, and everyone just left. Because of the difficulty and expense of packing and transporting all the machinery, equipment, appliances, furniture, tools and even many personal belongings, they were simply left behind, and the entire fully out­fitted contemporary village was abandoned. Since then, many portable items of any practical use or value have been ­carted off by scavengers, yet more than enough remains to give the place an almost-still-lived-in feeling.” (extract from cruisingworld.com)

Today it’s Valentine’s day, and I joke with Glen that he couldn’t have chosen a more romantic place to take me to on this day (as non-Americans, we don’t really celebrate Valentine’s). So I dig out a dress I never wore before, with matching flip-flops and umbrella to protect me from the intense sun, and I nag him all day on “how romantic” it all is and I’m dressed for the occasion 😊

After a coffee with Michelle and Ian, we set off on a tour of the island. And indeed, the facilities are exactly as described, except most of the lighter equipment has now been removed. But there are still equipment instruction manuals in the offices, chemicals in the laboratories and furnishing in the accommodation.
The airport has a hanger that is collapsing due to rust and the runway is fully intact but getting over grown. It’s one of those odd places where you feel like you are the first to discover it after a nuclear war or major epidemic or such like. Almost spooky.

On the east side of the island there are two spectacular beaches in wide crescent shaped bays. And we wonder, how is it that most of these beautiful islands have managed to escape development? After the rest of the Caribbean, it’s a refreshing surprise to see such an unspoiled environment, mostly in its natural state. We stop on one of them and go for a swim… how refreshing after our hot hike.
For sunset and early evening the four of us have drinks, snacks, chats stories and jokes on Cloudy. We’ve really bonded in the last few days and it will be a sad farewell when we finally go our separate ways.

Tomorrow will kind of mark the end of our adventures in these remote and gorgeous Exumas cays. We will be heading to George Town for refueling and restocking of our fridges and food cupboards. Then a long passage to Cayman Islands.