Well we came and left the mecca of the Bahama islands, Georgetown, Exumas. It was very nice being there when there were between 25 and 50 boats in the harbor. I cannot imagine being here doing the high season of March and April. While there we of course did the usual cruiser things, such as laundry, topped off our fuel, had lunch on land, and spent time with other cruisers at the "Chat & Chill". We spent too long at the fuel dock which made us late for our planned arrival at our staged anchorage for leaving Georgetown. So we anchored just off the channel of Elizabeth Island since we couldn't see well enough to get in closer to shore. We left early on Wednesday 11-19 so we could make our arrival at Conception with enough light over our shoulders to see the coral heads and reefs. We too Bruce Van Sant's advice (as we often will while transiting thru till we reach the Virgin Islands) by leaving out between Foul Cay and Whelk in early morning light. With Cheryl standing o n the boom, we could see the reefs we had to transit thru out this cut. We made it to our anchorage with no other boats around. Two boats joined us later that evening but they both left within a day or two leaving us the entire anchorage to ourselves for a few days till others came. Conception is an uninhabited island that has a beautiful sand beach just a swim away. We took in the sites of the island and Ed got a haircut on the beach that turned out quite good. We have a friend that likes to spend most of his time under our boat (see the picture). He loves chicken fat and celery leaves but isn't fond of many other vegetables. While waiting for the winds to die down (they have been 23-28 knots gusting to 34 for the past few days, we have wiled away our time reading Bruce Van Sant's book, "A Gentleman's Guide to Passages South" and doing teak work (taping, sanding, applying varnish, repeat). Ed also ran our little outboard motor since it hadn't been ran since leaving Jacksonville and while he was cleaning it, the prop dropped overboard. We got out the mask and fins and a really long boat hook connected to a fishing net and retrieved it off the bottom. While in the water, we checked out boat bottom and the zincs on the shaft and prop finding out our zinc on our prop we had replaced just before leaving Jacksonville was gone. Hard to believe it fell off in a month's time. More likely, it was never put on to begin with but we will never know. Cheryl tried to put a new zinc on but was unsuccessful. Need to work on holding our breath longer. Some friends we met in Georgetown arrived today at our a nchorage and he graciously volunteered to put a new zinc on for us. Since he insists on doing this pro bono, we are thinking of ways to reciprocate the favor. We will at the very least provide them with sundowner's. As I said this island is uninhabited, thus there is no Batelco tower (phone tower) so we do not have internet access so we are listening to Chris Parker's forecast every day to find out when the winds and seas will let up enough to move on to our next anchorage. Chris is very good at providing weather information in the Bahamas but he tends to gloss over the SE Bahamas (where we are) so Ed hailed him this morning to get a better forecast for our area. Our current plan is to leave Conception Wednesday evening and sail overnight to Mayaguana (our last Bahamas stop). We think we will be leaving just before a cold front pushes thru so we will be trying to get to Mayaguana before it gets ugly there sometime on Thursday. Until then, we will read, do our teak work, cook, eat, rest, and enjoy this beautiful paradise.