Conception Island and Rum Cay, Bahamas

On May 6, 2015 we departed Georgetown, also known as Chicken Harbor, for Conception Island, about a 50 mile trip which took eight hours.  Georgetown is called Chicken Harbor because most cruisers never go further south and usually turn around and head back north to the U.S.  The cruising south and east of this area is not for the fair weather sailor as you will read in our later blogs.  Winds were at least 20 knots and waves increased to 5 to 9 feet before we arrived in an anchorage on Conception Island.  This island is uninhabited but very pretty.  We found a raft on the beach, not sure how it got there.  This was a very rolly anchorage and we didn’t get much sleep as we tried to sleep from port to starboard instead of bow to stern so we wouldn’t be thrown around so much.  However, the sunset was beautiful. Departed for Rum Cay on May 8th for a 31 mile trip which took seven hours due to tacking.  This is another pretty island which doesn’t offer much anchorage protection, but we were able to anchor on the west side due to east winds.  Extreme caution and visual piloting skills is needed to spot the coral heads that are just under the surface.  Some of them at low tide are above the water.  Hitting any coral head would be disastrous.