When we had completed our visits with Corinne, Calvin, and Megan we turned
our bow south towards Georgetown on Great Exuma Island. This the hub for many
cruisers who stay in this spot for the entire winter where much socializing is
done. For us it was a jumping off point for islands to the south and east of the
Exumas but not before visiting ‘Rake and Scrape’ night at Eddie’s Edgewater
Cafe. Rake and Scrape is a traditional Bahamian style of music played largely on
the out islands and usually includes an accordion, (in the old days a
concertina) a goombay drum, and a saw that is often played with a old rusty
screwdriver. The band on this night also had a guitar, bucket base, and a tom
tom drum. There is nothing fancy about the evening but the rhythm is contagious
and eventually everyone is dancing.
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| The Goombay drum is on the left and the saw player and tip bucket on the
right |
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| The rest of the band. |
Most of the creature life is below water in the Bahamas but we do
occasionally encounter insects such as this spider that was suspended between
bushes on a deserted beach at Jack’s Cove.
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| Creative photography makes it appear larger than real life |
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| Don’t know what type of beetle it is but it sat perfectly still for this
portrait |
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| The effect of the wind and waves on the limestone landscape can be very
dramatic as we saw just outside Black Point. |
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| Another dramatic spot with the Exuma Sound in the background. Can you find the "horse" in this photo ? | |
The weather since the beginning of March has been unusually settled. The
trade winds blow from the east every day and as a result there are few fronts
moving through and the waters have been very calm. On the day we sailed from
Georgetown to Long Island the Exuma Sound was like glass as the temperature
increased the closer we were to the Tropic of Cancer. It was so calm that we
stopped in 5000 feet of water to let out all 200 feet of our anchor chain to
untwist it.
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| You can probably feel the heat just looking at the Exuma Sound. |
Long Island is 100km long and quite narrow with one main road running the
length of it. It was the third island that Columbus landed on in the New World.
As always the people were welcoming and are only too happy to stop and give you
a lift to where ever they are headed. The major highlight was wonderful grocery
shopping where we loaded up on vegetables and fruit.
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| The very dry climate of the south Bahamas is ideal for cactus type
plants. |
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| It is always surprising to see such beautiful flowers surviving in rock and
minimal soil |
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| And everywhere you go – coconut palms |
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| Landscaping with rock |
Landscaping with rock - It may be difficult to see the hours of work that
must have been spent landscaping this front yard. Clearing the scrub out,
building the walls, and using rocks to create ‘gardens’ around each tree must
have been a huge effort.
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| The ‘weather station’ at Salt Pond, Long Island. Not so good at longer-range forecasting. |
Our time on Long Island was cut short by the amazingly settled weather when
we realized we could spend time on tiny Conception Island. You might wait a few
years to have weather that is settled enough to anchor at Conception as it is
open to most weather. The surge from the ocean wraps around the entire island
which makes for uncomfortable rolling in the one achorage. It is a National
Park (the deserted island type of park) and another of the three islands that
Columbus stopped at. It is an important birding area, and the mangroves are a
playground for sea turtles. We took the dinghy into the mangroves and enjoyed
the sizable turtles popping their heads up all around us but didn’t have any
luck catching them on camera – they are a shy bunch. The reef on the north side
of the island is the longest continuous example of Montastraea reef in the
Caribbean. The reefs were huge and looked ancient, and it was a little creepy to
be in the middle of so many giant sized coral heads so close together . We saw
some of the largest fish we have ever come across including three really scary
looking Barracuda. It was all a bit much for one of us who left the water to
sit in the safety of the dinghy … guess who?
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| Some of our neighbours on Conception |
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| More birds in the mangroves with the turtles |
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| Classic Brain Coral |
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| Some of the ancient coral, very different from the smaller, cuter stuff in
the Exumas |
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| This was the biggest parrotfish we have seen yet |
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| A very large Tang |
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| More ancient pillar coral on the north side of Conception |
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| Coral on the west side of Conception is much smaller, phew! |
Eventually the winds shifted and the anchorage became quite rolly so although
we still had more investigating to do here we moved on to Cat Island, but we’ll
be back another year.
