SE Bahamas
February 11th, 2007
Leaving Georgetown was hard where we had a good grocery store, liquor store and cheap wireless internet on the boat.
We had a full moon the night before we left and this apparently affected the fishing as we trolled 8 hrs in prime fishing water on the way to Conception Island without catching anything, nada, nothing. We stayed for 2 days at Conception, a reserve with good diving and snorkeling. In Georgetown, some new friends told us about sharks attacking white bottom kayaks. We thought this story was highly unlikely until Jeri had two encounters of her own with an agressive nurse shark while kayaking.
Our next stop was Rum Cay which had many many coral heads to explore. We tried our hand at spearfishing but Jeri kept running me over with the dingy so I quit. We sailed in heavy seas and high winds overnight to Crooked Island where we stayed at French Wells cut and met some new cruising friends. The highlight of this area was seeing the Greater Famingos. They are wading birds and feed with an upside down bill. They are pink with black flight feathers and neck and legs are extended in flight. We found several flocks on the flats of Long Cay near a Hatian wreck.
The Hatians are amazing sailors who leave home in handmade wooden boats with rags for sails. They rarely come ashore except in Nassau where they pick up loads of Salvation Army clothes and trade for staples to take back to Haiti. We visited one small island where several Hatians were buried by the local Bahamian after they wrecked on the nearby reef and drowned. We saw humans bones in the sand.
The sand flats have large bonefish and baby tarpon. Conch were easily found in <2 feet of water 200′ from our boat. From French Wells we day sailed to Mayaguana, anchored at the South East point and left at 3 am for Turks and Caicos. We arrived Saturday at 11 am, found our way through the reef and are sitting in Turtle Cove Marina waiting for Kirstin, Adam and especially Kaden to arrive on Tuesday.
