Conception Island revisited

Necessity
Eva and Jan Fr. Mack
Fri 22 Mar 2013 18:06
Our position is 23:51:01N 75:07:22W
Rum Cay was good, like a flashback to earlier times when houses were built to be cooled by the breeze and some big ceiling fans. The main house was decorated by coral carvings and surrounded by colourful flowers.
A couple of big motor yachts brought us back to our times - their noisy generators running late at night and early mornings. Apparently living without AC would kill the proprietors of these boats, boats and proprietors equally over weight. Yes, I did discuss the matter with them, which, as far as I could see, only resulted in elevated blood pressures.
Apart from big motor yachts, Rum Cay also has a sizeable population of sharks (the marina basin is called "Shark alley"). Mostly they are sand sharks (harmless), but there were also some nurse sharks (almost always harmless), and outside the entrance there were some bull and tiger sharks (no comment).
Neither sharks nor motor yachts spoiled the experience of Rum Cay. The corals were reasonably good to snorkel, but a real pain navigating with Necessity. Still we were set on leaving mid tide this morning. Arne and Jon were at the bow, I behind the wheel with my polarized sun glasses. High on adrenalin we got through the maze of coral heads. The markers were not there, removed by the hurricane Sandy, the one that proceeded up the coast to New York.
We are now at Conception Island where Eva, Fredrik and I visited in Mackita in 1997. At that time we were en route between Cuba and Bermuda. Back then the island was pristine. Today there are five other boats here, but the water is still crystal clear. So far we have seen no sharks, but we know they are around. Hopefully we will be back with more.
jfm 22.03.13

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