Conception Island, Bahamas
23.50.913N
75.07.214W

Please jot this date down. It's the date I ran out of coconut rum. The Virgin Islands are still quite a fair distance away for restocking. Oh my Rhett, what will I do? I guess I'll just have to use regular rum in my sundowner instead.

Well, before this conundrum developed, we started our day by heading north to snorkel some more reefs. Dale figured out that the wreck he had originally wanted to find is a couple of miles away and we needed to keep an eye on how much gas we use in the dinghy. So instead, we took off North and jumped in where it looked like 10 - 15' deep. It wasn't, it's just that the water was so clear. In actuality, it was probably closer to 25 -30' deep. It was pretty cool but wasn't as spectacular as Leaf Cay was. Of course, I attracted another barracuda. It was fine as long as it was circling us and keeping its distance but when it made a pass directly towards me, Dale came up with his spear and shooed it away. I think that they're attracted to my (actually Michelle's) pink flippers but Dale says not. I might try a different pair tomorrow to see if it has any effect.

We came back and joined Doc-No-More in exploring the mangrove interior of the island. What a wonderful nature excursion. We saw herons, egrets, osprey, wood storks and something that looked like a cross between a duck and a heron (I didn't bring a bird book with me). We saw lots and lots of turtles. It was surprising just how fast those turtles can swim and change direction. Pretty dang quick. We followed the deep water in for as far as we could and in 2.5' of water, we saw 2 sharks. We never got close enough to identify what kind of shark they were but it was certainly surprising to find them so far in and in such shallow water. We also found hundreds and hundreds of upside down jelly fish in the sand. I never even knew of such a thing until we came back and identified them in our books. Another interesting phenomenon that occurred in the shallow water was that each ripple produced a prism in the water. Fascinating.

Well we're off to Rum Cay tomorrow. It's only about 20 miles from here so we'll leave mid morning and still get in while the sun is still high in the sky.