We are back in the Bahamas.
We spent Thanksgiving with new friends in North Palm Beach. The next day we took care of getting our Covid tests and completed the online paperwork for the Bahamas Health Visa and Customs. Saturday we left the dock and moved to an anchorage near Peanut Island, just inside the harbor entrance. The forecast was for the wind and waves to drop during the day and be calm overnight, then starting up again the next day. We chose to leave at 10:00 pm and along with our friends on Unplugged we pulled anchor and headed off to the Islands. It started out a bit rolling but as the night progressed it flattened out and was a comfortable ride. Unfortunately we were motoring, not sailing. We reached the Bahamas Banks after sunrise and it was obvious we were leaving the deep water for the shallow banks by the change in color of the water. We continued on to Great Sail Cay and anchored in time to watch the sunset. We were up the next morning to catch the weather forecast on the SSB radio and started off again. The winds had picked up overnight as they had forecasted and we had up to 20 knot winds on the nose until we cleared the island and turned back on coarse to Green Turtle Cay. The winds continued to drop during the day and we spent the last hour motoring to Manjack Cay. We stopped for the night because we were not going to arrive at Green Turtle in the daylight. The next morning we were advised that the Immigration Officer would be arriving on the morning ferry and would be at the Green Turtle Club for boats to check-in. We pulled anchor and headed off for Green Turtle Cay, about five miles. We have a friend on the island that was expecting us but rather then pull into Black Sound where he is located I chose to go into White Sound where the Immigration Lady was. Big mistake, it was low tide and the channel is not well marked (in my opinion) and we ended up hard aground. This is not dangerous, it is a sand bottom but embarrassing and frustrating. They say there are three types of sailors: those that have gone aground, those who haven't YET, and those that lie about it. I am in the first group many times over. Our only option was to wait several hours for the tide to come in and free us. It turned out that Donny came out to see what was taking us so long to let him know we had arrived and found us aground. After admonishing us for not "coming home" to his dock or anchoring out and having him give us a ride to Immigration he hooked onto us, pulled us free and we nervously bumped our way into the anchorage. Once anchored it was time to take our documents and check in. We thought we had our ducks in a row but we had not printed out the proper flu test results. Our phones do not work in the Bahamas but we were able to get online and pull up the proper reports. Viewing the report on our phones was enough for her and we were finally checked in. It was time for a Kalik Gold, the local beer, to celebrate being back in the Bahamas.
The first thing we did after checking in was to take the crew of Unplugged (three children and dog) to the nearest beach. The next day we showed them the way to another beach with a bar and restaurant. Unfortunately, the place is closed on Wednesdays. We hung out on the beach letting the kids play and cut down some coconuts to get some fresh coconut water. In the afternoon, just after high tide we pulled anchor and moved down to Black Sound and tied up on Donny's dock. As far as Donny is concerned we were back home. We now needed to take care of phone and Internet access. There was a Bahama Telephone office in the small town but after hurricane Dorian they never rebuilt. Donny was making a run the next day to Marsh Harbor where there is an office and Cori and several others went with him. While she was gone I took a walk around town to see the changes. Many of the businesses are still closed, some of the houses are in good shape, many show damage and there are many empty lots where the buildings have been torn down. Fortunately there is an air of optimism that everything will eventually return to normal. It's still sad to see the damage even after two years. When Cori got back we set up the Internet hot spot and we are online. We cannot make phone calls because we suspend our AT&T account while we are out of the country but we are able to send emails, some messages and some calls over the Internet. That is good enough.
We spent some time helping Donny with projects and some exploring the beaches and town. More cruisers are arriving and there was a pot luck at the dock and a trip to the ice cream shop. After the weekend we headed out to revisit the islands around us. We moved up to Powell Cay and spent time on the beach and exploring then moving back to Manjack Cay to do the same.
We plan on staying at Green Turtle Cay for Christmas and then move on.
