It seems like such a long time ago that we were at Green Turtle Cay in the Abacos. Since then, we headed to the northern end of the Bahamas visiting Manjack Cay, Crab Cay, Allans Pensacola and Grand Cay. Manjack was "crowded" for an Abacos anchorage for this time of year. There were perhaps 10 boats in the anchorage. What a great place: we hiked about a mile along a marked path to the ocean beach and then dinghied around the mangrove flats catching sightings of sea turtles gliding around under water so gracefully. Next time, we will stay for longer as the snorkeling is supposed to be great, too. Crab was more typical; it was beautiful and we were the only boat there. Allans Pensacola has notoriously bad holding, but since we were the only boat there, we scouted around until we found a patch of sand to place the anchor. Later that day, five more boats came in, four of those from Quebec travelling together. We tried to go to Double Breasted Cay the next day, as it's supposed to be one of the most beautiful anchorages. The aerial pictures we've seen support that. We actually did anchor at Double Breasted for about 45 minutes but decided to leave. The winds were in excess of 20-25 knots and the tidal current running through there was about 3 knots. When we arrived, it was wind against tide and the boat was all over the place. We didn't think we'd get any sleep if we stayed there, so we left and went to nearby Grand Cay. It is a fishing village with a very protected harbor. Due to the weather (as always) we ended up staying there five nights! Way too many days there, considering there was really nothing to do there.

Finally the weather started to settle and we were able to leave. We took two days to cross the Little Bahama Bank, staying an overnight at Mangrove Cay, smack dab in the middle of the Bank. When we got off the Bank, we stayed a night at Old Bahama Bay Marina at West End. Sadly, we had our last conch fritters, Kaliks and Bahama Mamas. We got to bed early so we'd be fresh for the early start for the crossing. Who knew that legions of killer mosquitoes would be out to ruin our sleep!!!

We made the crossing back to the US on April 25th into West Palm Beach. The wind was almost directly behind us and with the waves and swell that day, it made for some floppy sails. Lots of sail tending to get the most out of them. Once we hit the Gulf Stream, it was more fun as we saw more speeds in the 7 knot range. We made it to West Palm in about 10 1/2 hours, which we were pretty happy with.

After checking in in West Palm, we picked up the anchor again and headed south on the ICW to Lantana. It's only about 12 miles, but there were 7 bridges, so it took a lot longer than we thought it should. We finally anchored around 7 pm. We'd been hoping to get together with some boat club friends, Chris and Mary, that evening, but missing a few of the scheduled bridges made it impossible to get to Lantana early enough. It ended up being a 16 hour day!

The following day we continued motoring south along the ICW to Lake Sylvia in Ft. Lauderdale, a trip of around 35 miles and 17 bridges! The highlight of the day happened while waiting for the Camino Real Bridge to open. I saw a woman waving, so I looked behind me to see who she was waving at since I don't know anyone in Boca Raton. Then I looked through the binoculars and saw it was Mary! Chris and Mary were having breakfast in the club adjacent to the bridge, and they looked out the window and saw us! What are the chances of that!

On Saturday, after provisioning and buying our Western Florida and Keys charts, we set off for No Name Harbor at the south end of Key Biscayne, a trip of about 30 miles. My major excitement for the day occurred right at the start, at the Ft. Lauderdale inlet bridge. It was a very busy Saturday on the water with 20 knot winds and ripping ebb current where we had to wait for the next bridge opening. The brilliant builders made this bridge 55 feet clearance (vs. the normal 65 feet), so only certain sailboats need to have the bridge open for them. There was only one other sailboat and us requesting an opening. However, as the bridge opened, another sailboat shot in front of us. It turns out his mast height was 45 feet, so he didn't require an opening. Just as we started going through the opened bridge, the bridge operator radioed the normal, "Caution, caution, SE 17 St. Bridge closing." He saw the other sailboat and assumed it was us! I got on the radio and shouted, "DO NOT CLOSE THE BRIDGE AS WE ARE JUST STARTING TO GO THROUGH IT!" I've heard about this happening before, but you can't imagine the adrenalin flowing through my veins as I could picture the bridge spans coming down on us!

Once we got out of the inlet, we were a little worried about our speed after getting a late start to the sailing day. We needn't have worried. With a brisk east wind, we had a great, fast sail down to Cape Florida. We anchored outside the harbor, as it is usually crowded on weekends. Also, there was lots of loud music playing (that we could hear from where we were outside). We were congratulating ourselves for picking a good spot to stay at for some solitude. I hadn't counted on the sailboat coming to anchor near us at about 1 am with their music on full volume for the next hour or so!

We had had an idea about exploring the Keys for a little while before putting Sunkissed to bed, but until we bought the charts, we weren't sure what we'd be dealing with. As it turns out, the deep draft route through the Keys is called the Hawk Channel. This channel is outside the keys, but inside the protective barrier reef. There are very few protected places to anchor. In fact, even the approaches to many of the marinas, should you want to stay at marinas were of insufficient depth.

Although we were pretty tired after going full tilt for several days, we knew we needed to keep moving for the next weather system that was coming. So we sailed on to Rodriguez Key, about 40 miles. It was the only anchorage that showed any promise on the charts, but it still had lots of shoaling all around it. We wanted to get as close as possible for some wind protection, and saw another Island Packet close to the shore. But when we hailed him, he warned us of how skinny the water was, and revealed that he was aground! Good thing we have our heavy-duty Rocna, as it held in the 20-25 knot winds that blew all night long!

From Rodriguez, it was another 40-ish miles to our next stop, Boot Key, where we are right now. We are about 2/3 of the way to Key West. We're moored in a very protected harbor filled with 250+ mooring balls. Right now, the harbor is a little less than half full (as the transient season seems to be finished). We're so used to secluded anchorages, even this seems very busy to me. I can't imagine what this place would be like when full. I would imagine that this looks a little like a Wal-Mart parking lot on a Saturday morning when all the moorings are filled! At any rate, we're here to wait out some squally weather coming across the Gulf of Mexico. As I write this blog, the rain has just started....