Family Visit and heading back to USA

I have some videos to add to this post, but I'll do that later. Check back to see them. They're great!!
We had a great visit from Shay's mom, Jean and sister, Jenny. We picked them up at Marsh Harbor Airport and took them for a tour of the big city of Marsh Harbor. Then we took the ferry back to Green Turtle Cay and Donny's Dock.

We had a great time with them. We enjoyed seeing them and introducing them to our friends on GTC. Of course we had David and Emma from FFF over to the boat several times to visit and entertain.

Their official welcome to Green Turtle Cay picture

On David’s birthday, we all went to 2 Shorty’s for lunch. Jenny and Jean had their first Bahamian meals. Of course they had BBQ ribs, peas and rice and baked mac n cheese. Later that day, David had a birthday party, so a bunch of us from the dock went up to Donny's house for burgers on the grill with all the fixings, tossed salad, pasta salad, brownies and ice cream. We had a great time celebrating and getting stuffed! Jean and Jenny got to meet a lot of our dock friends. 

Jean and Jenny's first Bahamian meal. At the famous 2 Shorty's

We took a golf cart tour of the island and even went to places we had not seen. The North Beach is a VERY secluded beautiful beach. We also went to Coco Bay beach and saw the turtles and sharks that hang out there. We went shelling on Gillium Bay and had a long walk. We found lots of sand dollars and Jean and Jenny heard the legend of the sand dollar from Emma. We drove around the town several times and showed them the “sights”.

Walking along North Beach

You can see that the road has been cut out of the rock. Then they use these "rock blocks" to build walls and things. This is near Green Turtle Club. 

Selfie in North Beach

We saw this gateway on our trip

And it has a tunnel underground that leads to a house

Shark at North Beach

Beautiful Gillium Bay in the background

  

                           

They had one of the island’s best bargains—an ice cream sandwich for only $1.00! We ate burgers at Harvey’s Sunday Burger Bash. We ate breakfast at the New Plymouth Liquor Store and lunch there another day. Shay and David had helped a fellow boater with a problem and he’d given them each a gift certificate for the Liquor Store. Thanks Sea Turtle!

A great treat after a walk around town

We took Escape up to Manjack one day. We took the dinghy up the creek and saw turtles, starfish, upside down jellyfish and lots of little fish. We didn’t see any rays and that was disappointing. We had planned to spend the night, but it was windy and rolly in the anchorage, so we headed back to our dock.

Jean found her a comfortable spot to rest.

Upside down jelly fish and some kind of large worm-thing

                           

Jenny enjoyed the dinghy ride up the creek into the mangroves to see starfish and turtles

We stopped by Max and Mary Earl’s house, so they could meet our guests. They are leaving GTC and heading back to NC for a short visit. They’ll be back soon.

Our cruising permit runs out about a week after our guests leave so we’ve been debating stay or renew. It won’t cost anything to extend it, but sometimes it’s a pain to get. You are supposed to renew it the day it expires. Well, sometimes the weather doesn’t permit you to get to Abaco Island on that particular day. So, if the weather’s bad, and you go late, you can get in trouble. I told Shay I was ready to head back if the weather was good for a crossing.

He’s been watching the weather and it looks good for leaving the day they go back. So, we start planning to go back and hope the weather stays favorable. On the day of their departure, we took them to the ferry dock on GTC and hurried back to the boat to throw off the lines and head back. We needed to leave as quickly as we could so the falling tide wouldn’t leave us high and dry.

Their "good-bye" pose. Do they look rested?

Saying good-bye to their new friends, David and Emma

Saying good-bye to us

So glad these two special ladies came to visit us. Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. See ya back in NC.

Well, everyone else had been listening to the weather, so we had a mass exodus leaving Black Sound and surrounding areas. Our friends, Earl and Kathy on Seeker, Dean and Susan on Autumn Borne, Tom and Marylou on Dalmatian and others left that day heading back to USA.

David and Emma on FFF left the dock to go stay at Manjack for a few days. They are staying at GTC until after the Heritage Festival the first weekend in May. It’s a celebration of their history that’s held every two years. Everyone tried to talk us into staying, but I need to see my peeps back in the states. You know I can only go so long and then I need ‘em. Now, don’t get me wrong, Jean and Jenny helped my need for family a lot. But it’s time.

We got back to the dock from saying good-bye to our family and I was just in time to snap this quick exit of FFF.

See ya in November, back in Vero!

As you know, our plans are written in sand, but we’re talking about coming over in early December this year and flying back for Christmas. The weather is so much more settled in December than January. Who knows?

We left GTC around noon on 4-17-18. We are undecided how far we’ll go. We are heading to Great Sale Cay. We may spend the night or we may keep going. We’ll check the weather later in the day.

Bye GTC. I'll be back.

We decided to stop at Great Sale spend the night and leave around noon the next day. The anchorage was bumpy at first but during the night the wind died down and it was flat calm as you see in the pictures.

Sailboat at Cooperstown. Donnie doesn't like to travel past here. He says its dark if you go past Cooperstown.

This is Center of the World Rock. So, I guess I can check going to the center of the world off my bucket list.

See, that's what the chart calls it.

A very brave sailboat going near the center of the world

This was a treat from Emma. A banana from Donny's tree. I told her she picked it too soon. It was still a tiny baby. She said no, they never get big. We had it for a treat and it was very sweet and good.

Boats at Great Sale Cay. The anchorage is bumpy

Beautiful sunset

Fish on the "Barbie". No we didn't catch it. Unless pulling it out of the freezer at Sam's back in Vero it considered "catching".

See how calm the water was at sunrise the next morning?!

We’re debating where we will enter the US. We could make an easy trip and go back to Ft. Pierce then Vero for a few days. This would give us a chance to spend time with Richard and Connie from SeaSalt. And of course eat some good old American food. It’s amazing how good and inexpensive the food looks on TV when we watch it out of the States. I keep saying I’m going to get that when we get back. But I can’t have it all. Can I?

Or we could go farther north and get back faster. Decisions, decisions.

We decided to make it an easy trip and head back to Ft. Pierce We left Great Sale at noon heading for Ft. Pierce. Seeker and Autumn Borne left about the same time we did.

Fantastic water!!

It's hard to tell where the water stops and the sky starts!

The water was so calm and clear you could see the rocks and plants on the bottom. Some of the clearest water we've seen this year.

Two boats anchored off Mangrove Cay. We went by here around 4pm on 4-18-18.

I’m working on this blog at 5pm on 4-18-18. The weather so far has been fantastic. You saw the pictures of the anchorage this morning and the good conditions have just continued. We keep seeing and hearing other boaters on the VHF that are heading back and we all are so blessed that we’ve had this passage so far. 

Sunset with one lone sailboat on the horizon. It's a little bumper now. Soon after this picture, we went by West End/Memory Rock area round 9pm.

I guess we can make a final decision when we get to the Gulf Stream and see how bumpy the water is. You never know until you get out there. And we all know, “if it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen out there.”

We passed by Mangrove around 4pm. We got to Memory Rock/West End around 9pm. We are heading back on a slightly different path from now one, than the other boats we left Great Sale with. We could still see them on the horizon for a while then they were gone. Safe travels guys!

We plan to get to Ft. Pierce around 8am in the morning. Slack tide is then and we won’t have to fight the tide coming out if we get there then. And maybe we’ll even get a push from the incoming tide on the way to Vero. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.

We had installed new electronics while on GTC and had some problems with them on the trip back. With each new piece of equipment there’s a learning curve. Why was this one in the middle of the night in the Gulf Stream?

There is basically no moon tonight. Well, a tiny sliver that set about 9pm. I woke up sometime during the night and ask Shay what was the light I was seeing. He said it’s FL. Guess that means there are a lot of lights on all night in southern FL. There was a meteor shower tonight, but we never saw any. We were in the perfect place. No ambient light around at all.

We had a medium calm crossing. Not as good as some, not as bad as others. I took over around 3am and when I did, we had about 12 boats showing up on radar and 10 lights off in the distance. We were all heading into the same small inlet and expected to get there about the same time. So, for a while we played dodge boat. We speeded up a little and moved ahead of most of that crowd.

This boat had dragged its anchor, ran into power lines, and caught fire last week. It's just off the ICW in Ft. Pierce. It would be really sad, if it's left to sink.

We got back into Ft. Pierce about 8am and headed up the ICW to Vero Beach. I texted Jason and Travis to let them know we were back in the states and they didn’t need to call anyone to report us missing. When we filed our float plan we sent them a notice to call the Coast Guard to report us late if we didn’t contact them by a certain time. I called Lauren; since I knew she would be up getting ready for school. I called Daddy and told him we were back! It’s good to be back where I can use the phone and call anyone whenever I want and not worry around extra charges.

I also called Customs and Immigration to let them know we were back. In the past I’ve called from out in the ocean and had no problem. Not today. The guy told me to go online and use their new app, ROAM to check in. We had tried to use the app in Bahamas and couldn’t. I explained that when we left 3 months ago, ROAM was not around, so we had filed a float plan online He said they didn’t use float plans now and go online. I explained we were traveling and didn’t have good internet and wanted to do it by phone. He said just go online, it was easy. He said he couldn’t check me in because we weren’t at a marina. I told him I had done it before while we were 3 miles off the coast. He said he couldn’t do that, what if we didn’t make it to our marina? I said what if we weren’t going to a marina? He said just do it online line when you get where you’re going. I said are you refusing to check us in? He said yes. Do it online. I said we may not have internet until tomorrow, I don’t know. So, you’re not going to check us in? He said no. Stupid ************. Doesn’t he realize when they get this app up and running he can and should be FIRED?

I told Seeker about my experience and she said she tried and tried to get the app to check them in and finally had a video call with Customs to get checked in.

Got to Vero Beach City Marina at 9:50am. We had traveled 137nm, at 6.4kts for 21.5hrs. We, especially Shay are exhausted. We got tied up, made a few more calls, took a shower, and then a nap.

When I got up I was getting hungry, since we had only snacked on the crossing. I made a big pot of chilie beans for dinner and we had a quiet night on the boat. Good to be back.

The next day we went to shore to eat breakfast with Richard and Connie from SeaSalt. We had planned to sneak into the airfield to watch the planes practice for the air show, but it wasn’t starting for several hours so we went back to the boat. Just like yesterday, we were able to see the planes practicing. It was amazing.

Looks like an accident getting ready to happen, but it's all part of the show.

Saturday Shay and Richard went down to Ft. Pierce to work on SeaSalt and I went to the mall. I had shopping overload. I’ve been away from the States for 3 months and too much stuff to look at. I got my 5.5 mile walk in as I walked from the mall back toward the marina. I did get picked up by two good looking guys (Shay and Richard) in front of the Police Dept. I was also buzzed by the Blue Angels several times during the air show. We’re eating dinner a Richard and Connie’s condo tonight. I haven’t decided what awesome eat out meal I want tomorrow. Sonny’s, Applebee’s, pizza, MCD’s? So many choices, so many calories. While still in the Bahamas, I promised myself I’d eat me a great meal back here and not worry about the calories. And I’m going to do it!

We had a fantastic home-cooked meal with Richard and Connie Saturday evening. She fixed roast, carrots, potatoes, gravy and salad. We really enjoyed the meal and the company. Thanks guys!

Monday we rode the bus and went shopping. Shay had his sensory overload then. We are so blessed here. We have access to such a variety of shopping opportunities. We get used to it, but after being away from it for 3 months we are impressed. We only did a little shopping today, since we (or should I say Shay) had to carry it back in his backpack. We did do an eating splurge today. We went to Sonny's BBQ. Shay said he'd been hearing me talk about ribs and I was going to get my fix today. I had a great salad from their fantastic salad bar and a BBQ sandwich. Shay asked me how much I would have paid for my salad on GTC. I told him I would pay $15.00 for my plate, but no way could I get a salad this pretty and delicious there. And definitely NO WAY it would be only $15.00. IF, and that's a big if, I could get a salad like mine it would be at an outrageous price.

Back to the boat, since it looks like we're going to have a rainy afternoon and evening. We had a lazy time on the boat. Watched TV, messed on computer, read, then showered. We are waiting for a package to be delivered to Richard, so he can bring it to us. And around 7:30pm, he called and said it was there! We had made plans to leave around 7am tomorrow and now we can. Vero's been great but its time to get closer to NC.

Up and dropping the mooring line at 7am. Yes, sometimes plans do work out just as you plan them! Did I just say that out loud?? Don't want to press my luck. Safe travels and fair winds to us. Heading to at least Cocoa and maybe farther.