May 1-3

After a few nights of poring over the charts and guidebooks, we decided to visit uninhabited Conception Island before heading to the Exumas.  Conception is a small island, just 2100 square acres.  It is protected as part of the Bahamas National Land and Sea Park and is home to many sea birds and nesting sea turtles.  Its pristine beauty left an impression on all of us.  When I think back to our time there, the word Ananda comes to mind.  Ananda is the Sanskrit word for “Bliss”.  We had a lovely sail there from Long Island, flying the spinnaker and catching our first yellow fin tuna.

As we pulled up next to the island and dropped our anchor, we saw the familiar outline of a Beneteau 473, anchored a few hundred yards away.  It was one of only two boats already there.  We were ecstatic to see that it was s/v Echo, with our friends Jeff and Mary on board!

We enjoyed the remainder of the day.  I swam to the beach, ran the length of the island, then ran the length again on the ocean side, and swam back to the boat.  So far so good on my resolution to swim every day.  I found some cool glass jars and giant bamboo on the beach and swam it back to the boat.  Now I just need to find someplace to store all my treasures!  After dinner, Jeff and Mary came over for drinks and the kids watched a movie.

The next morning, Jeff, Mary, Wendy, and Craig came for breakfast.  We had scones that Chris baked while Jeff and Mary filled us in on places to visit in the Exumas.  The kids were beside themselves with joy when we allowed them to do their schoolwork on the beach.

By mid-morning, we had packed up some snacks and headed out on the dinghies to explore the mangrove rivers.  It was fun to explore the tangle of mangroves while trying not to run our dinghies aground.  We found a cool spot to hang out in and just pulled the dinghies up on the sand while the kids explored.  We kept an eye on the skies because we knew that weather was coming in.  We showed our weather dorkiness when we obsessed for about an hour on the clouds.  Suddenly, we spotted a funnel cloud!  I had never seen a tornado or water spout before.  I was fascinated, being as it was miles and miles away.

Back at the boats, I did my swimming for the day before 3pm.  We had been told not to swim before 9am or after 3pm, since those are the times when the sharks come in to eat.  We had lunch, cleaned up, and I made bread while the kids all played on Patronus.  Meanwhile, the dads and Bryson went dinghy fishing.  That’s right.  They went out in the ocean on the dinghies, with fishing poles.  They each got a black fin tuna and brought them back to Patronus to clean and filet them.  If you are following along closely, you might have guessed that it was now after 3pm…

Never before on our trip have we born witness to such a spectacular display of the animal planet.  We watched in awe, with cameras in hand, as Chris and Craig allowed the fish scraps to fall off the swim platform.  Immediately, lemon sharks, barracuda, remoras, and other fish zoomed in from under the boat to fight for the food.

I attached my Go Pro camera to our boat hook (thanks for the idea, s/v Full Monty!) and lowered it into the water to catch the action up close.  The shiny camera caught the sharks’ attention and I had to yank it out several times before the sharks ate it!  All ten of us were standing on the back of the boat, screaming our heads off, laughing, pointing, and staring incredulously.  In the back of my mind, I thought, “No one is ever going to go in the water again!”