The day dawns pleasantly, and the Long Island rally fleet heads off in a variety of directions; some go back to George Town, some to Calabash Bay at the north end of Long Island, and two of us steel ourselves for the long sail over to Conception Island, a jewel of a small uninhabited island further east, out in the open ocean, and part of the national park system. Once clearing the headlands of Cape Santa Maria we find ourselves with a fifteen mile beat to windward. It shouldn’t be a big deal - we are doing fine on starboard tack but once we go over to port progress comes to a screeching halt. Our speed drops from 6 1/2 knots to 3 knots, and we are pointed back towards Long Island. Are we dragging a net? Is there something wrong with the boat? After a while we finally see the small current arrows on the chart that indicate a contrary current where Exuma Sound joins the ocean, and we make the wise decision to drop sail and motor the rest of the way of our now over 50 mile trip.
We enter the west bay of Conception Island by late afternoon and realize that it has been more than worth the effort. We have found nirvana! The color gradient of blues and turquoise reflect the rapid change in depth from over 7000 feet in the ocean to the shallows of the shoreline.
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| The bay at Conception Island |
There is only one other boat here in a several mile long crescent beach, but that won’t last for long.
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| All this beauty just for us! |
As we pull in, a few other boats join us, and we know of more that intend to sail in tomorrow. We putter around a bit in the dinghy and walk the isolated, pristine beach – ours are the only footprints here.
The clear view to the west provides us with a spectacular sunset, and the lack of ambient light other than our few anchor lights makes for excellent star gazing.
The next morning we are awakened by the shrill song of tropic birds circling our boat. These beautiful white birds with streaming long tail feathers are rarely seen, and we have many overhead. High tide will be shortly so we take the dinghy into the interior mangrove creeks to search for the plentiful, friendly, and curious turtles that, according to the cruising guide, populate these swamps. What we find are shy and timid sea turtles that are determined to keep us from a close up encounter. They are here, though, as the mangroves provide a nursery for turtles and sharks.
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| The mangrove creeks where turtles appear as moving black circles |
We spend the afternoon exploring more of the shoreline by dinghy. At a small rocky islet nearby we find a colony of brown boobies. They stream out of holes in the rocks in an effort to encourage our departure. Nearby is a vast reef structure we snorkel. The variety and health of the coral is impressive, but like most places in the Bahamas, we are disappointed with the quantity and size of the tropical fish. I lose my enthusiasm when I see large black creature swimming around a distant coral head. It might have been a ray; it might have been a shark, but I’m not sticking around to find out. The sharks out here aren’t necessarily the friendly, harmless nurse sharks we encounter elsewhere.
Late afternoon several other boats we know sail into the harbor. The setting demands a beachside happy hour so we go from boat to boat to invite the cruisers to the evening festivities. Rock slabs above the sand provide a perfect table, and we are joined by a diverse group of boats hailing from the States, French Canada, and Italy, with the chatter a mix of English, French, and Italian.
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| Not a bad table for the hors d'ouvres, eh? |
After a little wine, we provincial American women are giggling as the four men from the Italian boat have come dressed in speedos. It will be a happy hour that few of us forget due to both the setting and the interesting participants.
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| Our new multilingual friends |
One could easily spend days at Conception Island but everyone decides to leave the next morning as there is a possibility of strong westerly winds the following day, and due to the rapid shoaling of the water, this is a dangerous anchorage in those conditions. We head back to George Town on a fast 50 mile reach while several other boats go north to Cat Island where there is better but perhaps not optimal protection. As it works out, the westerly winds are briefer and lighter than predicted, but we are still content with our decision. When we reach George Town we hear of a sailboat that sank that morning about 20 miles further north. It had struck some submerged object that was adrift and in a half an hour went down in several thousand feet of water. The boat had anchored nearby us in George Town a few weeks ago, and we are relieved to hear the couple aboard evacuated the boat safely and were pick up within a half hour. It is a sad ending, though, to someone’s journey to paradise. The tragedy impresses upon us the need to take every safety precaution possible in this otherwise unforgiving environment.
