Great Sale Cay Back to the USA 2017!

So we left at about 7:30pm heading to Ft. Pierce. Several boats had left the anchorage earlier in the day, so when our armada left there we only a few boats in the harbor. We left with Avalon, All the Way There with Alan and Ruth, Easy Living with Dalton and Judy, Saber Tooth with John and Nora and Rhiannon with Benny and Lisa.

Really our last Bahaman Sunset

 

Of course, Shay took the first watch and I went to bed. The water was rougher than we had hoped so I wanted to sleep if I could. I dosed then woke up and the boat was rocking and rolling so I went back to sleep. I figured when Shay couldn’t take anymore, he’d wake me. The guys kept talking on the VHF to make sure everything was ok. I woke up at daybreak and Shay slept for a few hours then just laid around.

We were early getting to the inlet so the current was not slack. The water was very rough going in, but calmed down when we got inside.  There were lots of people out on the breakwater fishing and others on the beach sunning, playing in the water and wind-surfing. It was just another Friday afternoon at the ocean.

Heading toward Fort Pierce Inlet

It is rough going in. This is one of our armada going in in front of us

A Friday afternoon at the beach

Fisherman on the breakwater.

Swimmers, sunbathers, windsurfers, and watchers

Once you get inside, it calms down.

Ft. Pierce Coast Guard Station

We got to Vero Beach at 3pm after a long rough trip. We traveled over 19 hours at 6.8kts and went about 130nm. We traveled a little faster to help the stabilizers and get out of the Gulfstream faster.

It's always good to see this big USA flag at Vero. First of all it's good to be back in USA and this flag means we are at Vero!

On a mooring in Vero, again

 

Love these sunsets

 

 

Our trip from Great Sale to Vero

We will spend a few days here and then head “norther”.  Well, I thought that’s what we’d do but Lauren called us and she found a house she wanted us to see, so we rented a car and drove to Wilmington house hunting. She put in an offer but didn’t get the house so we will keep looking.

Back to Vero for a few more days and then we will start moving. We got a few provisions, haircuts, and ate Mexican a few times. We ate there twice. I had the early special or lunch two tacos with shredded chicken, rice and beans. It was a real deal and a lot of food.  Yes, I watched what I ate. And I walked a few times while we were here.

We turned in the car, washed the boat, washed 2 loads of clothes, filled our water tanks, took off our trash, and paid our bill. We are ready to leave out tomorrow morning.  We thought about doing an outside passage, but the weather is too windy for the next week to be outside, so we’ll do the ICW.

We left Vero at 6:40 on April 30. We know we have a long day and want to get started as soon as we can. As always, Vero has been fun.

Green Turtle Cay and on to Great Sale

As I said before, we enjoy our time at Green Turtle Cay. This year has been great.

We have been so happy with our dock “besties” this year, FFF, SeaSalt and Rocking B. We have spent lots of time with them. We have eaten lots of great food together. We have had several celebrations together. We celebrated Margaret’s birthday together at Harvey’s.  We celebrated Valentine’s Day with sweet treats. We celebrated my birthday with a delicious spicy mango chicken wrap at Laura’s Asian then we had ice cream, muffins, jello and fruit.  We celebrated David’s birthday and Richard and Connie’s anniversary with ice cream. We have had drinks and appetizers on our boats several times. We have had shared breakfasts, lunch and dinner on each other’s boats. Good friends, good food, good times, make good memories.

An overhead shot of Rocking B, Escape and Five Flip Flops. Dock "Besties". SeaSalt is near by.

It's always fun to spend time with SeaSalt

We have enjoyed many long beach walks with each other and collected lots of sand dollars and shells along the way. We really love to do a walk on Gillium Bay at low tide. We cut thru the trees to come out on the non-ocean side and walk around the tip of the island to the ocean.  You can’t do it at high tide unless you want to swim some. Sometimes we have the whole walk to ourselves sometimes not, but it’s never crowded and always breathtaking.  

Beach dat way!

Cutting across the island to the Abaco Sea side.

And this is what it looks like at low tide.

And breathtaking Gillum Bay

FFF does a lot of “trekking” when they are off the boat, so they are in the habit of taking long walks while they are on the boat to get in shape for the treks. Last year we didn’t join them, but I decided I was going to try this year. The first time we left I told them I was old and out of shape. I did not know if I would go as far as they did and I knew I would not be able to keep up. So I told them to go on and I would do what I could. David, having been in the British army told me “no man left behind”.  This means, they were going to walk at my slow, miserable pace.   

So, the next morning we left about 8 am for our walk from Donny’s dock in Black Sound to Green Turtle Club at White Sound. They usually walked at a very brisk pace to the Club, had a cold soft drink, rested a while, then trekked back. They didn’t know how far the walk was and it was my first time going there so I was clueless. The first day was a hot windless morning and it was very hard for me. I was so glad to get to the Club and sit down. I was not ready for that trek. And I had to do it again to get back to Donny’s! I thought about stopping one of the many golf carts passing by and asking for a ride back. It was that bad. When we got back to the boat I was hot sweaty and exhausted. I had no idea how long the walk took but later, Emma told me she thought it was about three hours for the walk and rest period. They are usually gone about 2 hours.  Green Turtle Cay is not a flat island and there are several up and downs along our walk. I wasn’t sure if I would do it again, especially when I realized how sore I was the next day. But I did and I worked hard to not hold them back. And it got easier and easier and now I am the one that announces tomorrow’s the day for our walk. We walk Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday every week and sometimes we do an extra day of beach or Club walk. I have been watching what I eat and I am proud to say I have lost 25 lbs! The walk is so much easier and sometime we can do the walk to the club in 41 minutes! That’s an improvement! So, I’ve got to make sure I keep it up in the states.  

I had some excitement on the walk on my birthday. Emma had ran ahead that day and David left a few minutes after Shay and I did, so I took off by myself. Somehow, David ended up taking a shortcut and got in front of me and kept ahead. I was fussing to myself about his “no man left behind” crap as we got close to the Club. There was a truck parked in the road so I went around it. There was a big rock on the side of the road and I tripped. I fell and landed, on my face. The guys in the truck got out and asked how I was. I told him I had people in front and behind me so I would lay there until someone came by. Shay and Ken came around the truck and saw someone laying in the road and wondered what was wrong and then Shay realized it was me. Well, they helped me up and I walked to the picnic table where we usually rest .  

Right after I fell.

Later that same day

A few days later

David and Emma were sitting there wondering where I was. Had I turned around and started back? Was I waiting for Shay? No, I busted my face! David wanted me to celebrate my birthday by having a record breaking walk, so he walked fast to push me to a faster pace. And it worked! They were so sorry; they had not come to my rescue. Emma had me a cold drink waiting and it was appreciated. I cleaned up in the bathroom, rested a bit and started back.  David and Emma tried to get me to slow down, but I told them I was fine and let’s get this walk over. The next day I was sore and bruised and got even more bruised as the week went on. But, I did get to celebrate my birthday with a great wrap and lots of goodies. The soreness lasted a few days but it’s now over 2 weeks and there is still some green and purple left. 

Me with my birthday goodies. Muffins, fruit and jello which is a British birthday custom, and ice cream!

And my crazy friends

 

We measured the distance with a handheld GPS and the walk is 4.75miles. And remember, there are some hills along the way. We do this walk at least 3 times a week. And we walk into town a few times so we figure we are walking at least 20 miles a week.  

The pictures below show some of the sights along our walk.  

This is the top of "Spanner Hill". Named by Emma, since she found a 5/8" spanner or wrench buried here. Now their boat is a metric boat so they can't use it, but if you need a 5/8" wrench, she's got it!

One of our views of the Atlantic Ocean along the way.

This is where the paving equipment is parked. And I do mean parked, it is used very little. They will pave a 200" section, then not do anything for days or weeks!

These are some of my fellow walkers. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less. But whoever goes we "git'er done"

A lovely view of the dump. There are always chickens and wild pigs running around. And a wonderful smell!

Our view from the picnic table at Green Turtle Club.

 The island has lots of beautiful flowers that we enjoy along our walks too. 

Yes, I know this is not a flower, but the leave sure do look like one.

Bougainvillea

Philodendron. Yes, we usually see this in a pot, but look how big it gets outside

We usually see this in a pot, but this one is taller than me!

Beautiful

Yes, snake plant and its 3" tall.

Another huge plant

 Bromeliad, this took root in a hole in this tree.

Hibiscus in Donny's yard.

Another view of Donny's beautiful yard. He works very hard to keep it looking pretty. He says he loves to water his yard, its therapeutic for him.

Well, we have decided to go back to NC and help Lauren as she looks for a house. We had talked about DC, but feel like she needs our help now. Hopefully, DC will be there when we do go. So we are looking for a weather window starting April 1^st. 

 

As expected, when you want a weather window, there is not one. We have had a windy season and it continues. Shay and David have been keeping an eye on the weather, looking for a settling down of the wind. 

We finally decided to take the best window we had seen in a few weeks and head back. It won’t be a nice as our last passage back, but it shouldn’t be too bad. FFF and SeaSalt are heading south to Marsh Harbor for a few days and Rocking B is heading back to the states.  

Ken and Margaret have decided to take a sabbatical from boating for a few years. Ken can’t stand the thoughts of her sitting in a yard again, so they are putting her on the market. They are taking her back to St. Augustine. They will clean her up and hopefully find a loving buyer. I know this is hard to do, but they are ok with their decision. They want to sail back so they are looking for a different window than we are. We want no wind but want some wind, so we won’t be traveling with them. We all saw them leave the marina and wished them a good sail. Enjoy the ride! 

Biscuit is ready in her seat.

Ken, Shay and Richard having a discussion about how to get Rocking B away from the dock.

Margaret taking down the Bahaman flag

Ken ready at the helm

Margaret waving good-bye

Shay and Margaret with the last line

A final wave...

...and they're off.

 We have planned to leave here and go to Great Sale then head to the States. David and Shay have spent hours online looking at the weather and making plans. David said this won’t be perfect, but ok.  Shay has spent more hours planning our trip. Looking at different legs of the trip, how long they are and how long they will take at our usual speed.  We plan on taking the easiest and shortest trip back to Ft. Pierce, but if the weather improves, we have alternate locations up the coast all the way to GA. We left every early on April 19^th. Our great friends were there to help with lines, get hugs, and give us best wishes for a smooth crossing.  We left at 6:15 with a beautiful sunrise.  

We will miss you!

Leaving Black Sound. You can see a floating marker in the water. We heard a sailboat ran into the piling and broke it. Wonder how long it will take to replace? Remember, it's da Bahamas, mon.

Bye, New Plymouth!

We saw beautiful turquoise water and dolphins. They played with us for a long time. There were three and they love to ride just at the top of the water and blow a lot. It was fun to watch them. It was windy on the way with 20+kts and gusts to over 30.  

 

 

We got here at 3:20 after 9hrs at 6.4kts for about 59nm. We decided we’d have a better anchorage at the south end of the island since we had wind. As we turned to go into the anchorage some sailboats reported >30kts of wind.  There were around 20 boats there when we anchored and over 35 by dark. There are a lot of boats leaving and most of them are sailboats. They want to use the free power.  

Lots of boats here!

Look at that water. Amazing!

Last Bahaman sunset

Lots of boats left early this morning. Most of the remaining ones will leave with us tonight.

Rhiannon with Benny and Lisa

Easy Living with Dalton and Judy

Shay worked on us getting to Ft. Pierce in daylight with slack current. The trip will take about 17.5 hours, so we plan to leave Great Sale at 8pm and arrive at Ft Pierce after 1:30pm. Shay and the other boaters talked on the VHF and we now have 7-8 boats traveling with us. It’s good to see a friendly light out there. 

It’s hard to sit around all day, knowing that you can’t leave until dark. We read, did internet stuff, had a late lunch and tried to take a nap. It’s hard to go to sleep when you have to.

Our trip from Green Turtle Cay to Great Sale