Conception Island to Rum Cay

We had to leave at one time, so when the wind called we left Emerald Bay on Sunday Jan 31 to go to the north point of Long Island. The wind was fantastic, coming nicely abeam and we went 5.5 to 6.5 knots. Because it went so good we decided to go on to Conception Island. After 4 hours of fantastic sailing the wind said it is enough for me today and we had to motor sail the rest of the way. We were a little short on time, arrived at about 5 o’clock, which is a little late to have good light to see the coral heads in the water. When we were already on our obligatory arrival drink, two young men who were snorkeling around, told us that our anchor was not in the sand, so we took the anchor up and again down about twenty meters further.

The next day we went for a walk on the ocean side of the island, was a real adventure, on some places we had to use a rope to climb the rocks! After a peaceful day doing nothing we left on Wednesday to go to Rum Cay, where we are now.

We are in the harbor but when the wind is calm there some nasty no-see-ums, so we go outside to anchor for a few days. We have luckily internet here so we have updated all our mail and can always go with the dinghy inside to connect again. The showers here are $10 per person!! The water is taken from a sweet water pond in the middle of the island and trucked to the marina.

It is now Saturday and we are back in the marina, it really was a little wild outside, so yesterday we waited till high tide and went back inside.We had a wonderful dinner at Kay’s restaurant. The picture shows Delores, the mother of the owner and Dick and Nancy our neighbors in the marina. They have rented a golf cart, running on gas, and we went today with them to the other side of the island, again wonderful and deserted beaches, we have done some intensive shelling, but I still have not found my conch shell, I don’t give up hope.

On this island live about 60 people of which 20 are children. They can go to school here till they have to go to high school, for that they have to go to Nassau. The government is more then willing to give the kids the opportunity to get high school here, but the parent have to apply for that and until now they have not done that. I know all that because we had yesterday dinner at Delores (the matriarch of the whole island, see photo) and there was the school supervisor for three islands who just had a school meeting on Rum Cay.
It was really interesting.

The harbor master here is a very nice guy, called Rasta and is just filling in because the harbor is sold and the new owner first went on vacation before he would do something. Rasta is also an artist and carves wonderful pieces from death coral.

Tonight we have rain, after a long, long time and we hope that the boat will be cleaned from the salt water and I caught my first cup of rainwater to drink. Tomorrow we will go to the marine office and will check email and face book and will post this part of the blog.

Ria