As the sun rose, we motored out of Clarence Town Harbor, our official entry point into the Bahamas, and turned WNW and raised the spinnaker. We sailed gently up the northeastern coast of Long Island crossing the Topic of Cancer. After a long day covering 89 miles, we rounded the southern side of Conception Island and anchored in it’s West Bay. Once again, sitting in just 3m of clear blue water and well protected from the steady easterly winds. Another good find.
The Remote Conception Island
The island has been uninhabited since the early 1900s and was established as part of the 30,000 acre Conception Island National Park in 1978. You cannot beat the natural undisturbed beauty we found here. We are talking gorgeous pink sand beaches, sandstone cliffs, abundant mangroves and lots of wildlife where ever you look. This is another Bahamian Island you can only arrive to by boat. Getting in late, we just sat back and enjoyed the sunset. They will never get old especially surrounded by such natural beauty.
The following morning, we took a quick trip ashore and walked about 2 minutes over a small hill to the Atlantic side, which as you guessed it, led us to more fantastic views of pink beach and crystal clear water. We found a random rope leading up the side of a sandstone cliff. Who doesn’t love a little rock scrambling. Not easy in flip flops but we took the climb and and enjoyed the slightly elevated views that included a bit of a shipwreck just off shore and some fun little wading pools to meander in and out of.
Pro-Tip / PSA: When looking for the trail on remote islands, sadly just follow the trail of plastic trash. Not joking. Unfortunately, a lot of trash from the ocean ends up washed up on these islands. Cruisers often try to move them together often along trails…sometimes even turning it into a fun “art” walk with creative displays. Please try to conserve your use of plastics, it doesn’t always end up where you think!
We later took a dinghy ride a bit south into the inner lagoon of the island. This is another spot you want to time correctly approaching high tide and in very good visibility which will give you a little over an hour of exploring. The entrance is very shallow and littered with coral heads. Much like Crooked Island, we found ourselves in nature’s playground. The water was fairly shallowed lined with mangroves with lots of little areas to explore. We found an abundance of turtles, rays, egrets, ospreys, nurse sharks and lots of bonefish skimming the bottom. The water…yep, CRYSTAL clear. This would be a great kayak and paddleboard area or just a nice stroll for wading in warm water.
Long Island – Calabash Bay
Our next stop was a quick motor (we needed to charge up our batteries) 19.4 miles southwest to an anchorage located on the northern tip of Long Island. Same Island as before, very different setting. We needed somewhere to ride out some high winds and weather. Calabash Bay, off of Galliot Cay, was a good spot that also offered us a good jumping off point for our trek to the Exumas.
This anchorage was a bit of a doozy to get in. The huge bay is very deceptive. There is only a narrow channel of deep enough water to transit in. Where you depart the channel to anchor is up to your comfort level! We ended up a little away from a few other boats bailing out of the channel early a little farther south. They looked to be clumped in some very shallow water further in, still amazingly clear water. Like crazy clear. Picking up on the theme? The wind was supposed to pick up pretty gusty from the NW over the next two nights so we were happy with a little extra room to swing.
And the winds did just pick up as expected which led to two VERY rolly and bouncy nights of restless sleep and one very rough dinghy ride in to shore as the NW winds created a decent swell that wrapped around the island into our anchorage. We got a little luck in the afternoon when winds seemed to lighten a little break calming right around happy hour for bit. How fortunate! We decided to venture into a narrow inlet which snaked it’s way around into the island to a restaurant we found on google maps. This seemed the smarter idea to transit mostly out of the swell. However, we found a very closed make shift building, a small cemetery and nothing else.
It was a bummer not to find a hopping local joint, but we were anchored off the Cape Santa Maria Resort (no pics sorry) and while we try to avoid resorts, it did have happy hour specials, so why not! Being more exposed, we bounced bounced bounced our dinghy in anchored and anchored ourselves on a very powdery sand beach. Delightful on the feet. We ended up having some coconut shrimp and a pizza as well as a few beers while chatting with other cruisers who braved their way in for some adult libations. We did make sure we got back to the boat before sunset so we could navigate the again increasing swells and got a bonus moonrise not long after!
We also noticed that night that another Vision 444, Umbono, had meandered in. With only maybe a dozen on the water in the world at this point, this would now be our third sister boat we have crossed paths with. Small world? They actually stopped by on their way back from a day out and we chatted a bit until the sea state just became too uncomfortable and they headed back to comfort of their own “home”.
After another windy, choppy night, we awoke to calmer seas and decent sailing winds. We pulled up anchor and waved to our new Vision friends, as we crossed paths departing for our new destinations, which were sadly in opposite directions!
Lesson Learned: Navionics Charts (the ones we have been using) are very inaccurate in the Bahamas. While usually overly cautious, a good thing, it limits where we can actually go. Also, if it did happen to randomly be wrong in the shallower than expected direction, we would be aground. So next time we come…we need to pick up the Explorer Charts, which are more commonly used by cruisers for their more accurate depictions of depth. Regardless, high sun, especially from behind, and good visibility, are your friends in these cruising grounds!
Next Stop: The Exumas, “the Regatta Capital of the Bahamas”.