Conception Island Supplement

Saturday winds were favorable for sailing to Conception Island. This island is uninhabited and is a national park with a beautiful anchorage on the northwest side. Patch reefs are everywhere—some rocky with low to moderate coral coverage and some very shallow large healthy elkhorn coral (coral and seafans were sticking out of the water at low tide). Disaster struck in paradise, though, when we discovered that the refrigerator had failed. We transferred perishables to the ice chest and watched our ice supply quickly shrinking while contemplating where the closest ice machine might be. The sailing guides promised that Rum Cay was a bright center of civilization so we decided to go there Monday. Sunday we made a SCUBA dive on Hampton Reef in crystal clear water. This is a massive reef extending for miles off the northern tip of Conception Island; however we were surprised to find low coral cover and few fish. We spotted our first lionfish here.