April 5, 2009

Ahoy from Namaste!

How is everyone? Hope you are enjoying a beautiful spring.

I am posting two blogs today since I could not post the one I wrote for March 27. So take a look back one also.

Well, here we are back in Georgetown for a couple of days after spending a most wonderful 5 days on Conception Island.

We continue to be amazed at the beauty of the water world that surrounds us. I thought I had seen all the blues and greens that the Bahamas had to offer until we arrived on Conception Island. The east side of the island is surrounded by crystal clear green water. The west side, where we anchored, is surrounded by crystal clear blue water. These are colors we have never seen before! I have tried to capture them in the photos for you. The center of the island is a large mangrove that is home to green sea turtles. The outer edges of the island hold white sand beaches and rocky cliffs. We snorkeled, collected, took a tour of the mangrove with two friends to see the turtles and hiked along the cliffs.

The sea turtles are very shy and only come up to the surface of the water to take a quick gulp of air before returning to the deeper water. We sat for hours just to continue catching glimpses of these graceful swimmers. An egret dancing on a nearby beach also entertained us. It was a solo performance of leaps, pirouettes, and rhythmic wing flapping. There were a variety of birds not seen anywhere else we have been so far. There were long tailed, white, tropicbirds, oystercatchers, egrets, osprey and lots of seagulls.

While snorkeling we saw lots of the fish we have become acquainted with while traveling here in the Bahamas. We also came upon a 7-foot nurse shark. It is the one shark that I do not fear so I was able to follow it to capture a picture. Nurse sharks are bottom feeders and are much more predictable than many sharks. The only time they are known to bite people is when someone tries to pet one. Needless to say I did not get close enough to pet this guy.

We arrived back in Georgetown ready to do some work on Namaste. She is showing some wear after six months in the water. Chris is working on the small rust spots that appear every so often and I am giving her a good cleaning. We will be here for a couple of days and then we are not sure where we are going. The weather is really nice now in the central Bahamas so we are not ready to head to the Abacos just yet. We may go south to the Jementos or north up to Black Point in the Exumas. We will wait and see what the wind and weather are up to as we finish up our chores.

We will be in touch.

Peace and Love