Conception Island

We’d yet not been to Conception Island, one of the islands in the Bahamas National Trust parks. That means it’s protected from development and it is a no-take zone (no fishing, lobstering, conching or even shell collecting). We left Samana at 4am and after getting out of the cay’s wind shadow, we were making 7-9 knots with the screecher. We kept that up until the afternoon, when the apparent wind became too high for that sail, and we proceeded on jibs. It went back out later as the wind abated, until we rounded Rum Cay and got blasted by 20 knots, quite suddenly. We arrived about 6pm and anchored in 7 ft of water over clear sand, close to the beach.

We went out the next morning with Mike & Carol on sv Kanaloa to a number of different coral heads. But they were mainly dead, with few fish. No conchs, no lobsters. One nurse shark, some blue tangs, and one queen triggerfish. Very disappointing! We kept going W looking for good spots and eventually rounded a point and headed for the creek. It was lowish tide, but we got in by standing up in the dinghy to see the best path. It was clearly a good place to explore, so we left with a plan. Back to Ashling to submit my tax return.

The final day Alexis and I explored the creek pretty fully, for two hours. We saw an osprey bathing, many rays, two nurse sharks, and many turtles. But no (not one!) conch or starfish. On our way back, we were fascinated by the aerobatics of the tropic birds, like torpedos in the sky.Read more