We have been so lucky this winter, there has not been any really nasty weather until now. The couple of Nor'easter's that came through while we were in the USA were short lived. We decided to sail Friday from Conception Island to Santa Maria Resort on Long Island and anchor out. This turned out to be a good move as it shortened the trip to Lee Stocking Island and gave us a better wind angle to sail on Saturday. Just as we approached Lee Stocking Cut the rain and high winds came thundering through. Al had anticipated the sudden wind gusts and had furled the main sail and was in the process of furling the genoa but the winds were too strong and for the last half of the genoa he had to attach the line to the winch to finish the furling. During this time the sheets were flailing and one hit the dodger and broke the window. Oh well, they were yellowing and in need of replacement anyway. The wind came out of the south and started its typical clockwise rotation with high gusty winds and colder air (mid 60's). it was a fairly comfortable anchorage but because there was another boat anchored in close proximity we woke up with every wind shift to check that our mooring ball hadn't come loose and that the other boat hadn't swung too close.
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| Sun downer party at Conception Island |
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| Always beautiful sunsets |
Diving has in the most part been a bust. We have sailed about 500 miles since leaving Georgetown in search of the elusive spectacular diving the Bahamas is known for. Hogsty Reef was to be a highlight as people rarely go there (because it is so remote) and we expected the reef would be in pristine condition. In the two days we spent there we explored the small island and snorkeled on a small ship wreck. However it was so windy, with huge waves and surge, we were risking our lives just getting into the dingy.
Conception Island was also high on our list to dive and we did do some snorkeling but the reefs are basically all dead. There is the odd brain coral and a few sea fans that seem to be coming back. Fisherman have used bleach to fish for crawfish and scalefish. The coral is very susceptible to minute amounts of this stuff and that may explain the very few fish we saw also. We did spend one morning here exploring the mangroves and saw quite a few sea turtles and a crane but not much else. I was expecting the mangroves to be teeming with life but was sadly dissapointed.
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| Perry Institute for Marine Science has likely the only Hyperbaric camber in the Bahamas. |
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| This 2 man underwater vehicle should be in a museum. |
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This underwater vehicle was used in the James Bond "The spy who loved me" movie
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We were back in Lee Stocking Island to wait out the storm and obtained the last mooring ball. We stayed there for a few days and have now moved on to meet up with Dave and Corinne at Staniel Cay.
