Crossing 2018

Well, we just checked off the last things on our “To do before leaving US list” so we guess we’re ready?! We plan to pass by Great Sale Cay {yes, that’s how you spell it, although at first I thought it would be Sail when I heard it pronounced). We took our seasick pills as preventative maintenance. Hope they work. We plan to use our short weather window to get on into Green Turtle Cay ASAP.  

Anchor up and moving at 8:10 on January 23, 2018. We are traveling with Libby and Grant on Nightingale and they are ready too. We know the seas are going to be rough, but it’s the first window since after Christmas and the next one will probably be 10-14 days away. Wish us luck. No, it’s not life threatening, it’s just bumpy with the possibility of me being sick.

House along the ICW was we leave Lake Worth

There were several boats leaving as we did. Most of them were sailboats and loved the wind. They went zipping by us as they got out into the ocean.

The water looked like we expected. 2-4 foot waves and they were very confused. That means there was no regular time interval (seconds) between them. They just kept coming. We traveled a little faster than we normally do, just so the stabilizers would work better and we’d get thru the rough water sooner. We went downstairs after a while to see how the ride was there.  After a while I told Shay I was going downstairs to take another pill and lay down.  Our bed is the best place to be in rough water, the ride is smoother. 

The water stayed rough all morning and most of the afternoon.  We knew as we got to the Bahama Banks the waves would settle down. We have been traveling in water over 1000 feet deep and the water on The Banks would be 10 feet deep. Around 3:30, we got to the Banks and it was like flipping a switch.  In just a few minutes, the depth went from 600 feet to 10. The water went from a dark blackish color to the beautiful turquoise color you expect in the tropics. The waves settled down and the water was calm. Finally!

Finally, the way we want it! Calm

About 5 I went down and fixed spaghetti and a big salad. We ate dinner inside and enjoyed the calm water. We had a beautiful starry night to travel in.

We got to Great Sale about midnight. We had planned to anchor at Little Sale Cay and headed that way. By the time we got there the moon had already set and it was pitch black. We couldn’t see anything. We decided since we had never been in this anchorage and there wasn’t much land mass to see, we’d go back to our usual anchorage at Great Sale. There was a boat anchored there already and we headed toward it watching our depth sounder until we saw the depth we wanted. Nightingale anchored nearby. We had traveled 16 hours, at an average of 6.5kts, for a total of 105nm.

We left all our outside navigation lights on and even turned on our outside deck lights. We wanted the people on the space station too see us! Being dark is one thing. Being dark with no moon is another.  All we could see was the lights on the other anchored boats.

Let’s get some sleep.

We had made plans to leave around 6:30 so we got up at 5:30.  OMG, it’s foggy!  So foggy that we can’t see the boat lights anchored near us! So foggy that we can’t see the water around us! What the crap! We had calculated when we could get into Black Sound with enough water and knew we need to be there by 2pm. We have about 55nm to travel. We need to leave soon so we can get there.

So we take up our anchor and head out. Total darkness and fog makes it difficult to keep your bearings. We could usually look up and tell we were moving by the stars but no stars in this fog. We calculated the direction we needed to go by looking at our chart plotter and headed that way. By the time the chart plotter showed our direction, we had over steered and were heading toward a boat! So we made adjustments and then we were heading toward the island! So, we used the compass to head out, then set the auto pilot to keep us on course. Great idea. When we talked to Nightingale later, they did the same thing.

We had to travel slower due to the fog and actually used our Fogmate. That’s something that automatically blows our air horn every minute to let other boats know where we are. We could hear Nightingale’s also. That helped us feel better about our movements. We could hear several other boats, on VHF leaving the anchorages and tried to keep track of them on radar and AIS. They were both a lot of help.

Believe it or not, there's a boat back there.

The fog would lift in some places as we traveled but never all around and never for very long. Finally, at 10:30 the fog lifted and we could see! We speeded up at little to get in on time and got to the dock at 2:30. We worked until almost 5:00 getting our lines, fender boards, fenders, and power cord fixed the way we wanted them. I don’t understand, some boats come in, spend 10 minutes or less, and they are done. Even if we didn’t use the power cord it would still take us over and hour. Are we doing too much? Are they doing too little? Well, we’ll keep on doing it our way, because it works for us.

We had traveled over 8 hours, at 6.7kts and traveled almost 55nm. It’s good to be in our slip and hope we have a great time here. Hey, it’s Green Turtle; we love the island, the people, and we’ve got FFF and SeaSalt coming later. Life is good.

Nightingale passes us in the wind.

Heading into Black Sound. Not long now!

She looks good sitting in "her" spot.

The customs lady left at 5 today, so we’ll wait until tomorrow to be legal.  That’s ok.
The next morning we got checked in, Shay gave the boat a wash, I cleaned on the inside and we took a golf cart ride around New Plymouth. That’s enough for a day. We’ll take a long walk tomorrow and see what’s changed on the island.

Well, as expected, not much has changed on GTC. There is a new restaurant, The Turtle Crawl. They were working on the building last year and surprise its open! We’ve heard good reviews and will check it out later. We’ve got lots of fresh stuff on boat we need to eat before it spoils before we hit the island spots.

Super moon rising on Black Sound

We’ve been seeing old friends one our walk-a-bouts, but even the strangers are very friendly. There are several boaters from last year on the dock. We’ve also seen Keith and Joann from Walker’s Run, they’ve brought their new boat over for a month or so.

Five Flip Flops, FFF, are finally here. They had major problems getting their boat painted and as soon as there was a weather window they zoomed over. So glad to see they! They came in on a windy, rainy morning and had several dock mates standing by to help. That’s what we do! Well, I admit, I didn’t go out at first, I thought they had enough help. Shay had put balloons on the dock and of course Emma loved them. She started yelling “Balloons” and David thought she was talking about putting them on FFF before they came in. He thought she was going to go below and do that instead of helping him get docked! No, she was just excited to see them welcoming her back!

Hey guys! They did not look this fresh when they pulled in. They had on their "foul weather gear and looked soggy!

We’ve been doing our three times a week walks to Green Turtle Club, trying to stay in shape. David wants us to go trekking in Bolivia with them in June. I say “no way” am I hiking all day and then sleeping in a sleeping bag in a tent or worse. I told him to find we a nice bed with a hot shower and maybe. He told me to be careful what I asked for. He just might find it!
We have more friends watching the weather for a chance to cross over. Been nasty lately, unless they are like FFF and “love” the wind and don’t mind the waves.

I’ll let you know later.

We've enjoyed our time here so far, of course. Spending lots of time with FFF. Our friends on Walker's Run had us all over for a fishy meal. Fried fish, lobster tails, salad, Texas caviar, rice and yummy magic bars for dessert. It was a community meal. We all fixed something.

We had a sobriety celebration at Donny's house and it was great. He had lots of island and off island  friends and family to help him celebrate. Proud of you Donny!

I made a banana/walnut/fresh coconut cake for the celebration.

Emma and I took a tour with Donny to Manjack Cay to see the turtles, stingrays and look for Penny. We did see a big turtle on the north end, but it wasn't Penny. She's Donny's pet turtle that he takes tourists to each year. She's been around a long time and we sure hope she shows up again this year.

Donny feeding the turtle

This isn't Penny, its too small

Today is Valentine's Day and we're celebrating with Max and Mary Earl. They are a NC couple that are leasing a house here. We met them our first year here and enjoy spending time with them.

We're planning to head south tomorrow and check out some places we've never been. Not sure how long we'll be gone. Depends on the weather, as always.