Rum Cay to Long Island

After three days at Conception, we had a nice sail to Rum Cay. Our intention was to stay in a marina after a month at anchor. About an hour out, we reached a man on the radio who indicated the marina was in between owners. We could tie up for free, but there would be no showers, laundry, or electricity. On our sail over, we landed this fish. We were excited thinking that we may have landed a tuna, however after consulting our fishing guide, we found out it was a horse-eyed jack and no good for eating. Darn!




When we first entered the marina, Laurie saw a big shark in the water that she could tell was not one of the nurse sharks we are used to seeing. We continued to see big sharks in the water and were advised not to swim in the marina. Sharks are used to coming in looking for food from the fishing boats. Dan went spear fishing a couple of times on a nearby reef, with Dennis from the boat next to ours. On his first trip, he encountered a lemon shark bigger than he is, but luckily the shark turned away from him. On one of his expeditions, he speared this lobster. Despite being assured by locals that no one had been attacked by a shark at Rum Cay in their lifetime, Laurie declined to snorkel here.





On our first day on the island, the local cop was kind enough to pick us up while we were walking in Port Nelson and to let us know about the local businesses. We ended up renting a golf cart and touring the island. At one time, there were about 6,000 people on the island. Now there are only about 60 residents, all in the Port Nelson area. While at Rum Cay, we enjoyed Kaliks at Kaye's and a delicious wahoo lunch at the Ocean View.




We drove to a beautiful beach on the north side of the island, where we took a long hike and collected shells and sea glass.




After two nights in the marina, we anchored out, which we would not recommend due to surge that resulted in a couple of rolly nights. We then sailed to Long Island, catching this nice Mahi on the way.




At Long Island, we finally got the access to showers and laundry that we had been wanting. We enjoyed Mike's hospitality at the Long Island Breeze, including a fun Super Bowl party. Bo and Joyce from Dream Catcher were at Long Island when we arrived. One day we rented a car with them and toured the south end of the island. We enjoyed lunch at Max's Conch Bar. This is Gary, aka Max, making his famous conch salad.





This is Laurie and Joyce at Max's. In addition to the conch salad, we had grouper that was very good.




We visited Dean's Blue Hole as we had last year, but this time we knew to bring our snorkeling gear. Dean's is the deepest blue hole in the world and international free diving competitions take place here. There was a diver practicing when we arrived. He went down 280 feet.




We visited Saints Peter and Paul's Church in Clarence Town, one of Father Jerome's churches.






We walked a beautiful beach on the southernmost tip of the island.








On our way back we encountered some children walking home from school who readily posed for us.









Before leaving our Salt Pond anchorage, we took a couple of walks to ocean beaches.







We spent our last two nights in Calabash Bay near Cape Santa Maria. It is a beautiful anchorage where we both enjoyed snorkeling. Not a shark in sight! We also were both excited to see the green flash at sunset for the first time.

Location:Cape Santa Maria