In the Bahamas

We made it.  We are at Green Turtle Cay for the Holidays.

Monday was a long day, very long.  We pulled anchor again at sunrise and started motoring down the ICW with several others.  Our goal was to make it to Ft. Pierce and make the crossing from there.  The day went well, we arrived at Vero Beach around 1:00 pm.  Normally Vero Beach is the waiting spot for a weather window.  We already had our window scheduled so we only stopped to refuel and to fill water tanks.  We took on only 65 gallons of diesel, our first refueling since we left Morehead City in NC and we burned half of that motoring from St Augustine.  We made it to Ft Pierce about 4:30 pm and dropped anchor.  About that time we got one of our weather update emails from Chris Parker, our weather adviser and it was still positive for a crossing on Tuesday.  The wind had blown hard all day but it was dropping as predicted.  At 5:00 pm Chris does a weather update on the single-sideband radio and we asked about proceeding now rather then wait until morning.  His advise was it shouldn't be a problem.  After a quick dinner we pulled the anchor again and started out the inlet just as the sun set.  We were greeted with 4-6 foot waves as we got out of the inlet.  As we proceeded to get further offshore the waves lessened as the water got deeper.  We set course and started to our first waypoint.  The wind was out of the southeast and was just close enough on our nose that we could not sail, we were going to have to motor.  Throughout the night the waves dropped until we were only dealing with 1-2 footers and the wind continued to die.  By the time we crossed into the Sea of Abaco were dealing with 1 footers and about 10 knots of wind, still too close on the nose for sailing.

We continued following our route from waypoint to waypoint through the day.  A lovely day with light winds and a light chop in the water.  Last year we crossed during the day and traveled this area in the dark, this time is was nice to see the wide open expanse of the Sea of Abaco with it's light turquoise color and the ability to see all of the way to the bottom.  Evening came as we got closer to Green Turtle Cay and we arrived about 10:00 pm and dropped anchor.  We would wait until daylight and high tide to continue into Black Sound and tie up at Donny's Dock.

In the morning we called Donny to let him know we were coming in but he was not available.  While they were looking for him he pulled up alongside to welcome us and tell us where he was putting us.  We followed him in and got tied up to the dock.  We had talked to him previously letting him know when we were coming and he had also been following us on our Spot location reports.

Once settled in at the dock we proceeded to the Customs office to check in.  Another couple arrived at the office at the same time.  We were behind them at the fuel dock in Vero Beach and had anchored next to them in Ft. Pierce.  They waited until morning to leave and had just arrived.  We on the other hand were clean and rested having arrived the night before and were showered and rested.  We did learn one thing from them.  We learned about checking in as "co-captains".  If we sign in with both of our names listed as the captains we can eliminate problems if something happens to me (on the Immigration documents as sole captain) and Cori tries to take the boat out of the country by herself and only listed as crew.  Something we hope to never have to deal with.

Once checked in we are now "free to wander aimlessly about the Abaco" as Will on Anteries announces on the local radio net.  We are planning to stay in Green Turtle Cay through New Years and then start moving further south.

So far we have dinghied around the area, going up to White Sound to see who was there, into town for a bit of walking around and picking up some milk at the grocery store and relaxing.  Cori was able to get over to Gilliam Beach to start shelling. Not a lot of relaxing has happened yet.  Donny is adding to the docks and we gave him a hand with some of that,  He had planned to go fishing on Friday and taking Cori along but things got a bit busy with all of the boats coming in so we were giving him a hand moving boats around.  Friday evening was a highlight, Donny was going to be in his churches Christmas play and we went to watch.  He had two lines but he did great (There is no room here.  Go somewhere else.) and even got applause for it.  It was a typical small town, small church production with songs from the kids and two short plays about the real meanings of Christmas.  It brought back a lot of memories of the productions we would put on at Christmas when we were in grade school.  After the church production we walked around town looking at the lights and came on a birthday party.  Everyone was welcome, Cori got hit on by the birthday boy, they had an open bar for drinks and were serving big plates of beans and rice, mac and cheese, coleslaw, fried snapper and roasted pig.  It was a great celebration and typical of the Islanders friendliness.

Over night the predicted front came through and the temperature has dropped a bit but the winds are blowing 20-30 knots.  This is why everyone was in a hurry to get here and hunker down instead of waiting several more weeks in Florida before crossing.