Our planned itinerary suffered only one small change last week.  We decided to skip Rum Cay and head straight to Conception Island and spend a couple of nights there instead of just one.  It is a National Park with absolutely nothing ashore, but as you know by now, that is how we like it! 

     Throughout our cruising in the southern Bahamas so far, we have trailed the fishing lines.  We've had incredibly good luck and lately, with a full freezer, have taken to throwing the fish back.  But, after releasing three Mahi Mahi in as many days, I couldn't bring myself to let this one go.

We caught it just as we were approaching the anchorage at the northeast corner of Conception.  I had about half of it filleted before it was time to drop the anchor.  When I was finished, we had dinner in the fridge, a couple of nice packages for the freezer, and one big carcass on the boat.  Hoping not to attract flies, but not wanting to just drop the carcass under the boat, we dangled it in the water off the stern until we could take it out in the dinghy to dispose of it a little farther away.

     All our good intentions for naught, five minutes later we had a dinner guest!  This impressive nurse shark, obviously smelling food, circled around the boats for a few minutes to check out the scene before diving into his meal.  Nurse sharks don't have the sharp, menacing teeth you associate with the generic term, but use their powerful suction mouths to attach to their prey, twisting off a chunk of flesh which they swim away to consume.  We watched this guy devour the whole carcass of our Mahi Mahi in short order.  I couldn't believe we were witnessing it all right there under our boat.   With our trusty underwater camera, we were able to capture the images to share with others.

     One of the attractions of Conception Island is the large coral reef that extends for about five miles to the north of the island.  It is billed as the most spectacular virgin snorkeling and diving in the Bahamas.  This is saying something because the snorkeling in the Bahamas is pretty amazing everywhere.  I am sorry to report that we were sorely disappointed.  All the areas of the reef that we saw were silted over and virtually lifeless.  The coral formations themselves were pretty impressive, massive mounds rising 20 feet up from the seabed, studded with a large variety of coral, but the colors were dull and there were hardly any fish.  It is disheartening to see first hand the extent of the damage our oceans are suffering under the pressures of human populations. 

    Mothers' Day dawned on Conception Island.  We hauled up the anchor and set sail for George Town, Great Exuma.  As the queen for the day, I went back to bed, finished my book, and was served coffee.  I rolled out of bed at about 8:30, sat on the stern seat next to my fishing rod, and next thing I knew, it started singing.  We looked back and saw a handful of dorado leaping out of the water in hot pursuit of some fleeing flying fish.  Indeed, we had a nice dorado on our hook, which we released.  I obviously need a bigger freezer!  After the excitement died down, Cassie served me a delicious breakfast of pancakes and bacon.  We rolled into Elizabeth Harbor, anchored up in front of the Chat N' Chill, ordered up a dish of the Bahamian special conch salad and sidled up for a beer.  A dinner of fish tacos onboard wrapped up a perfect day.  What a lucky woman and mother I am!

     Monday was a work day for the Zia crew.  For the first time in nearly two weeks we had access to a grocery store, a cash machine, laundry, and internet!  In addition to just catching up with chores, we had a guest showing up on Zia off the 5:20 flight from Nassau and we wanted the boat in good order for him.

Francois arrived on schedule and within minutes of our reunion, we were toasting his visit with ice cold Kaliks on Zia. 

     For those of you who don't know all the details, Jean, who came and visited us in March for our first kite boarding sessions, is Francois' brother.  We tried desperately to convince Cois to join us for that trip but the timing just didn't work out.  Next, Francois' wife, Lisa, came for a five day visit in April.  With four kids at home - one in high school, one in middle school, one in elementary school and one still at home - it was impossible to orchestrate a family vacation or even a parent's get-away.  After Lisa's Zia vacation, she encouraged Francois to make the time in his schedule to do the same.  He managed to squeeze out a four day trip, unfortunately with long layovers in Nassau.  He had nothing on his agenda except kiting (if there was wind), plenty of beer, and lots of swimming in the clear turquoise blue Bahamian water. 

     Always well organized, Francois had already connected with the local kite school, located on Runaway Bay about twenty miles north of George Town.  We took off on Tuesday morning and had a beautiful sail up the Exuma chain to an anchorage behind Soldier Cay.  The kite beach was about a mile dinghy ride away.  We made it just in time for his two o'clock lesson with Gary.  The wind was a little light, but perfect for a land kite-control session for him.  Joe and I stayed on the boat with school duties.  By the time his lesson was finished, the wind had picked up and we were ready to kite! 

     Kiting is perceived as a pretty radical sport.  It can certainly be dangerous, as can any sport that harnesses the power of the wind.  As sailors, it makes a certain amount of sense that we would take to it.  It has been two months since we started kiting.  We have had about forty hours on the water so far.  Much of that time was spent in the Virgin Islands with Bob and Kathy, who are experts, and John and Po, who are beginners like us.  I can't think of a better scenario to learn the sport.  We all encourage and support each other.  Our kids and John and Po's kids have each other to keep them entertained while the parents play.  Francois fell right into the middle of this scene and fit right in.  If only he had a few more days with us... It is amazing how quickly you progress in this sport.  As a beginner, he was prudent to hire a trained professional to teach him.  He made some big strides towards becoming a kite boarder and with just a little more "time on the water," he'll be tearing it up out there.

     After Francois' early morning departure on Thursday, we took off 27 miles north, arriving at our destination by 9:30am.  I could rant and rave about this beach for a long time, but the pictures tell the story.  We spent all day Thursday and half of Friday tearing it up off the beach: four kiters, two dinghys, two catamarans, and four kids.  What magic!