We left Gro with a blast from the conch horn as we motored from Rum Cay on Saturday morning. Rum Cay's power station had gone down for a couple of hours for maintenance, without telling anyone, leaving us without internet very suddenly -- otherwise, you'd have heard from us sooner!

Bobby Little would like to sell his marina on Rum Cay -- he'd like to spend more time with his sculpture, which is doing well, by the way Bobby Little's Coral Stone Art Site, with sculptures such as this adorable fellow:


...and less time repairing the excavator so that he can spend hours in a metal box in the tropical sun digging the shifting sands out of the channel. It's a GLORIOUS location, if anyone is in the mood to run a marina in a fishing paradise.

We had a motoring run to Conception Island, which is a Bahamian park and therefore off-limits to fishing. We anchored at the West Bay anchorage, near the north end of the island:

West Bay anchorage, Conception Island

There we snorkeled on Saturday and Sunday, seeing some fish types we had not previously encountered on this trip, and swimming with a reef shark. Pictures when I can get the bandwidth to put them up! 12 Days Later... OK, some pics are up.

Saturday, we snorkeled around the coral heads just south of the little cay with its own pristine beach at the north end of the anchorage. There I saw my first pair of Midnight Parrot Fish -- how lovely!


Sunday, we visited the coral at the southern end of this anchorage, pulling our dinghy up on the beach and swimming outward and south from there. There were a lot of fish, schools of jacks hanging out with chubs and such...

Are they following the chub, or chasing it off?


Guess it was a chase, since they moved off without him...

Then we encountered a small blacktip reef shark, only about 3 feet long. Derek had encountered a blacktip at Rum that was 7' long, so none of us were too worried about Junior, we just gave him a little space while he cruised:
Junior, the smaller blacktip reef shark

He had company from some smaller fish...
Guess they weren't worried about being eaten

We stayed at Conception two days (Sat, Sun). It is no internet, no phone, no services, no one ashore except the tropic birds and the brown noddies. We were joined by three large power yachts for Saturday night -- with crews, of course. More about the snorkeling (where to go) when I can upload images. OK, the images are uploaded... go to the south end of the anchorage. The north end does have some fish at the coral, but the coral health is not very good there. Much better, and more fish, and more depth variety, heading south from the beach just north of the coral patch and swimming outward in a semicircle along the edge of the coral toward the dropoff to south. Go when it's sunny, it's kind of spooky when overcast.

Sunday included some "interesting" weather, a waterspout that ran iout of power only when it hit the island to windward of us, but also a lot of sunshine later in the day, and great snorkeling.

waterspout recently formed... see the little jag downward to the left?


waterspout dissipating

This morning we left, after a boisterous night with many rain showers, running the two engines and flying the jib, at about 7 kts, on a broad reach for Cat Island.

Hawk's Nest Marina is not large. They have limited availability for 30 Amp power (the kind we use), so we actually had to beg a splitter from one of the larger power yachts that uses 30A on their tender -- wow! M/V Huey's Island, you saved our day when the marina did not care to!

Hawk's Nest Marina and Resort

Dinner tonight at the clubhouse by the airstrip -- cheeseburgers in paradise... more later.

TUESDAY update: staying an extra day while the wind blows itself out a bit. Then Wednesday on to New Bight, where we hope to be able to get better internet connectivity.