A Trip to Long Island and Conception Island, 2/11 - 2/17

After packing Chris off to Philadelphia for a visit with his buddies we waited for the weather (meaning wind) to turn so that we could get out of George Town.  As appealing as it is, the noise and bustle of George Town do begin to wear on one.  There are more than 400 boats in the harbor, each with a dinghy for transportation to one of the four places one might wish to visit on any given day.  While there aren't any traffic jams, it does make for a lot of buzzing of outboards.  Did I say traffic jam?  The traffic jam occurs at the town dock behind Exuma Market.  Some days every linear foot of the dock is three or four deep in dinghies.

Finally, the wind started to head a little south of east on 2/11 and we headed out of Elizabeth Harbor.  We made a strategic error right off the bat by leaving through Conch Cay Cut at the north end of the harbor.  I had done this since the weather report forecasted that the wind would be truly from the southeast and so, while close hauled, we'd be closer to our destination than by leaving from the North Rocks channel.  Of course the wind shift didn't happen.  After three hours we had sailed about 20 miles, but were only a third of the way to Long Island.  Discretion prevailed and we motor sailed over to Long Island.  As we got closer to Long Island the wind speed increased and it was apparent that the ocean swell was from the northeast.  This spelled bad news for our planned anchorage in Calabash Bay so we headed for the entrance to Joe's Sound a little to the south.

It was easy enough to pick out the entrance from a couple of miles off, but it seemed to disappear as we got closer.  We used the VHF to call one of the boats already inside.  Ron from 'Jacobite' came out in his dinghy to lead us inside.  As it happened 'Chain Reaction' rushed in ahead of us so we actually had two vessels leading us in. Yikes.  At low tide the cut is about 18 feet wide, giving us 3 feet on each side, with rock ledges on the starboard and a sand shoal on the port.  We got in OK but my heart was in my throat.  The excitement didn't end there.  The anchorage is really a narrow creek with a very swift tidal current requiring two anchors.  We found out how swift the current was the next day when the wind was blowing 20 - 25 knots, but the boat still sat to the current rather than the wind.

The very high winds from the east kept us in Joe's Sound for the next three days.  Instead of trying to go elsewhere we stayed in this snug anchorage and did other things.  One day Diana and I took one of the bicycles up to the Columbus Monument on the point at Cape Santa Maria.  Columbus's ship of the same name ran aground here on one of his voyages.  Along the way Diana spied many interesting plants along the roadside, one of which was cotton.  We speculated that this might be a holdover from the loyalist plantations.  On the way back down to Joe's Sound we had lunch with Maria, on foot, at the Cape Santa Maria Beach Resort.  Diana had her first pizza since leaving Florida!  After lunch we swam in the crystal clear water of Galliot Cay Beach Reserve.

Our second day we went snorkeling on the reefs outside Joe's Sound.  The reefs we swam on did not measure up to what we have seen elsewhere.  In the afternoon we drew water from a cistern behind an abandoned house for freshwater baths in a bucket.  On the third day the wind slowed enough for some more boats to come across from George Town.  Instead of sailing we went shelling and Diana assembled a hermit crab collection.

One of the more interesting denizens of the Bahamas is the bat moth.  These fellows are black and grow to about six inches from wing tip to wing tip and have great furry antennae.  One night one of them came into the cabin for a visit. It gave us a start at first, and I thought s/he was a bat.  He was a little worse for the wear before we were able to get him to leave.

Finally on Thursday we were able to leave Long Island for Conception in the company of a number of other boats.  We were the last ones in, but I think we were also the only boat to sail over, sans motor.  Everyone else got there so fast and pointed so close to the wind that they had to have been motor sailing.  On the way we had a fishing lure in the water.  About half way we had a strike.  We brought the boat into the wind in order to stop it and reel in the fish.  Almost immediately the reel popped off the rod!  Try reeling in a fish with one hand while trying to hold rod and reel together with the other.  When I got the fish up to the boat Maria went below for the gaff.  When she couldn't find it she offered to take over the rod.   What, let a woman take control of my fish?  No way!  Besides, the reel was still trying to jump off the rod and she'd probably lose fish, rod and reel.  So I brought the fish along side, grabbed the line and started to lift.  As soon as the fish was clear of the water he gave a wiggle and broke the hook out of his jaw.  With all the blood in the water he surely became dinner for a hungry shark.

Friday morning Diana and I went snorkeling on the reefs at the edges of the anchorage.  Plenty of fish and colorful corals.  In the afternoon we took the dinghy to ride the tide up the creek into the mangrove swamp in the interior of the island.  Swamp is a misnomer since the bottom is sandy and the water is crystal clear.  One of the big attractions in the creek is trying to spot the juvenile sea turtles.  It is possible to see them scooting across the bottom as they try to get away from those invading their home waters.  On the way back out to the sea Maria sat in the dinghy as though riding a royal barge while Diana trailed along behind and I swam ahead towing it by the painter.  Diana and I had the best view of life in the creeks.  With mask and snorkel we could see back into the roots of the mangroves as we floated along.  Mucho little fish of all types.

The entrance to the creek that takes you into the interior of Conception is also not for the faint of heart.  It should be done only at high tide as the entrance is littered with rocks very close to the surface.  We tilted the engine up and rowed both in and out, although we did see braver souls run their engines through the cut.

On Saturday it was time to head for 'home' so that we could be sure to be in George Town for Christopher's arrival on Monday.  In these matters one always has to be sensitive to the forecasted wind shifts and other eventualities.  Two days would give us an extra margin if we had to duck into Long Island on the way.  And of course the forecast for Sunday was wind from the Southwest, which would put it on the nose on the return trip that day.  As things developed we had a beautiful beam reach for the first 18 miles.  When we were just off Cape Santa Maria the wind died.  It didn't just decrease gradually, it was as though someone had thrown the switch on the fan!  And Sunday turned out to be dead calm; Elizabeth Harbor was like a mill pond. But Mother Nature never does anything by halves.  On Monday when I went in to pick up Christopher we had winds of 25 knots and waves in Elizabeth Harbor of two feet or more.  There were even white caps in our anchorage in Gaviota Bay off Chat 'n' Chill.  Two feet doesn't sound like much until you add the wind and you're sitting in a dinghy with one foot of freeboard.  I wore my bathing suit for the trip and Christopher wrapped himself in his slicker and a plastic bag skirt in order to keep dry.  

	One thing we have had driven home to us is that planet earth has a pollution problem.  The ocean and Exuma Sound beaches are littered with all kinds of trash.  One day at George Town the cruisers got together to pick up one of the beaches.  They collected 102 trash bags of litter along a three mile stretch of beach.  This collection of bottles is on the ocean side of Conception is just a small part of the cruisers' artistic use of the detritus on the beach.
I  suppose a number of folks have contributed to this collection of shoes.  Do any of them belong to Imelda Marcos?
	Hmmm. A small navigational error here.
These small cliffs are on the ocean side of Conception.  Kids of all ages have fun hauling themselves up on the ropes.
	The cliffs are higher and steeper than they appear in this picture.