Rum Cay, lying northeast of Long Island is known as a great fishing and diving area. We arrived from Clarence Town, Long Island at the end of a period of northern sea swell and had a fairly rough passage for the 35 miles. As we pulled into the anchorage in St. George's Harbour off the main town of Port Nelson on the southern coast, we noticed Otra Mundo at anchor. We had assumed that Paul, Leanne and Otra Mundo would be well south by this time on their way to Puerto Rico.

We met up with Paul & Leanne again the following day in Kay's, the well known local bar and eatery on the waterfront.

Rum Cay has very little development and the settlement of Port Nelson is the only settlement on the island. All development is concentrated around Port Nelson on the south and southeast corner of the island. Sumner Point Marina and resort is the only major development on the island so far. However, they have a new, long airstrip, so further tourist growth is assured.

We knew that we had to visit the Last Chance grocery on Rum as it was reported that they still has some of the old table mats from the defunct Rum Cay Club. These table mats showed a map of Rum Cay with all the diving sites. We found the Last Chance and eventually their one an only surviving copy of the mat which we could not buy. We were offered a photo copy, but that could have been available the following day or week. Although we spent some time studying the map at the grocery store, the diving locations were vague and we had to memorise these to compare with our own charts.

Without accurate GPS waypoints, It was difficult to locate the diving sites marked on the table mat. Also the sea was still too rough to risk mooring or anchoring the dinghy offshore. So on two occasions we took Dream On out and re-anchored in deeper water over areas we thought may be those on the table mat. They were all interesting dives, but we did not find the actual topography as described for the site. Visibility was not too good and the coral was very deep.

When we left Rum Cay two days later on our way to Conception, we went via Flamingo Bay on the northwest corner of Rum Cay. This is well known as a very intricate, reef strewn anchorage, where good visibility and weather are essential. The bay is bordered by a 2 mile long reef running north with a visible Haitian wreck as a reminder of the reef.

Flamingo Bay offered one on of greatest eyeball navigational challenges so far as we literally had to steer between reefs to find an anchorage. Iza then snorkeled around to make sure we had enough room to swing on the anchor without touching coral.