We're so glad to be back in St Augustine, a city we discovered in the fall and fell in love with.

We left Hopetown, Bahamas on Monday 4/20 with the hope of going all the way to St Augustine, Florida. By the time we got to Great Sale Cay, the westernmost Bahamian island on our route, the weather was getting pretty unsettled. Our buddy boat, Exuberant, continued on with the expectation of getting ahead of most of the storms, but we were tired from a day of higher than expected winds and didn't like the looks of the sky around us. While anchoring there were three storms with lightening we could see around us. We headed out again Tuesday morning but the sky grew black and the prediction was for storms and squalls all day. We went around to Northwest Harbor on the same cay and anchored in a spot protected from everything but a south wind and spent the day watching the storms pass. By Wednesday morning we were confident that we had the most reasonable window for crossing we might have for a week. It was pretty easy with a good 3 kt push once we got into the Gulf Stream and no storms other than some occasional light rain. When we lost the push from the Stream along with the wind, we were concerned about getting to the St Augustine cut by dark. Fortunately,we got through the cut and got on a mooring just as it was getting dark.

Home of the famous Nippers Bar and Grill

This cay is famous for its boat-building history...

Glad to be back to this charming community...

Sally Gardiner-Smith, from Woolwich, Maine, is only 18 and has single handed Athena from Maine to the Bahamas. She only had help going down the NJ coast and crossing from Florida to the Bahamas. She plans on going further south to the Exumas before working her way back to Florida, accross the Okeechobee Waterway to St. Petersburg where she will begin her freshman year at Eckerd College in August.