We left Georgetown yesterday.   As we were leaving, the sailboat race was starting and we got stuck with the other sailboats leaving the anchorage area heading out into the Sound around Stocking Island.  We stayed out of their way, but I suppose it looked like we were in the race.  We sailed a short distance on the Exuma Sound and anchored at Lee Stocking Island.  (This is not the same Stocking Island by Georgetown.)  We had stopped near it on the way down but didn’t get a chance to visit the Perry Institute for Marine Science which is on the Island.  It has lost some of its funding so there weren’t any scientists currently conducting studies, but there was a group of college students visiting doing some course work.  There is a marine field laboratory here and excellent marine environments offshore.

We were given a tour by a 16 year old Bahamian named Christina.  She has completed all her coursework to graduate from her high school in Freeport, Bahamas, and is doing an internship at the Institute. 

We also spent some time walking around the island on some of their trails.   We had to sign a waiver at the Institute in order to do this.  One trail ended at a runway, which was probably used by the original owner of the island, the famous Commodore Perry. 

Another trail took us to Coconut Beach, which didn’t have any coconuts on it, but was a beautiful sandy beach.  Like most of the beaches we have visited, we were alone on it.