On Monday morning (5/9/16) as the sun rose in the east we put the Bahama Islands in our wake and set our course for Florida. The winds never reached the promise of the forecast so we had to motor sail until the afternoon when the wind died almost completely and we lowered the sail and motored to Lake Worth Inlet in Palm Beach. The positive aspect of no wind was that the Gulfstream was calm for our crossing. Several boats left West End around the same time but took different courses and made different speeds, so we lost sight of them eventually. Fifteen miles off Grand Bahama Island a Coast Guard cutter cruised past us, decided we were not interesting, and continued west where they hailed a motor boat behind us, interrogated them on the radio, and finally wished them a safe journey. About 30 miles off the Florida coast we saw two Navy Frigates slowly cruising north a few miles apart from each other, followed later by a small aircraft carrier. We also crossed paths with two freighters. Within a few miles of Florida a small dolphin fish (mahimahi) hit one of our lures and Karrie fought him and in spite of multiple aerial jumps (very exciting), during which I was sure he would spit the hook, she landed him. Then just outside the inlet the other line started stripping off the reel and the rod bent over hard. This time it was a big bull dolphin; 45 inches and 13 pounds. He put up a good fight but I gaffed him and brought him in the boat. As I brought him along side the boat we could see another large dolphin following him in. Dolphin are known to follow a caught fish and serious fishermen will have some baited rods ready to entice the other fish to bite.

Without a push from the wind our crossing was not as fast as we had hoped and we decided to drop anchor in Turtle Cove near our condo in North Palm Beach instead of pushing on to the marina in Stuart where we had a reservation. Besides, I had fish to clean! After a nice night in Turtle Cove we got underway at 6 AM, motored up the Intercoastlal Waterway and arrived at Sunset Bay Marina in Stuart by noon bringing our second winter adventure in the Bahamas to an end.

Thursday 5/5: As predicted, it was a dark and stormy night. Starting around 11pm and lasting well past 3am the front brought gale force winds and rain. Not a very restful night. But our anchor held firm and we had good protection from the wind in the anchorage at Great Sale Cay. In the morning the winds were still blowing 20-25 knots until after noon. During the afternoon the winds died down and by sunset it was calm again. Following the front passage the temperature was cool and the humidity was very low with no rain in the forecast, but in spite of that, later that night it rained hard again. So much for the science of weather prediction! To celebrate Cinco de Mayo we had Taco Salad for dinner but no margaritas, because we are out of tequila!

Friday 5/6: With a much improved forecast, we left Sale Cay early for the 46 nautical mile sail to West End, Grand Bahama. The first leg took us to Mangrove Cay, 20 miles west of Great Sale. After one tack we cranked up the engines for the last nine miles to get over the top of Mangrove and then we had a good close hauled reach SW down to West End. We arrived at Old Bahama Bay marina shortly after 7pm, stowed the sails and lines, fixed sundowners and dinner, and hit the sack.

Saturday 5/7: Seems like we were fortunate to get a slip at Old Bahama Bay Marina because there is a fishing tournament here and the marina is full of sport fishing boats. All the sport fishers were gone fishing when we get up, but returned around 5pm to fill the marina again. As we walked to the restaurant for dinner we saw them filleting large dolphin fish. At the marina restaurant Karrie had a whole fried snapper and I had fried grouper. There was a dinner and awards ceremony for the tournament participants followed by a Bahamian Junkanoo.

Sunday 5/8: Another easy day. We took a long walk around the resort grounds. Today’s photo is the view from the back of our boat in the slip at Old Bahama Bay Marina around sunset. For Mother’s Day dinner we had a thick sirloin steak and jalepeno stuffed baked potato. Tomorrow the winds should be good for our crossing to Florida.

Since our return to the Abaco out islands, we have revisited familiar places and discovered new and exciting ones as well.

Saturday 4/16: Following our first night at Lynyard Cay, we sailed to Marsh Harbour to stock up on fresh veggies at Maxwells, the biggest and nicest grocery store in all of the Bahamas. Karrie was in heaven. We had to stay there on Sunday as yet another front was moving though with strong winds out of the north. We would have preferred moving to Man O War to attend church, but that was not in the cards.

Monday 4/18: The wind clocked around to the NE, so we moved to “The Low Place” on Man O War Cay. The Low Place is a natural narrow land bridge between north MOW and the rest of the island. With strong winds out of the NE, the ocean was in a “rage” with waves crashing over the land bridge and washing into the sound, eroding the small beach on the sound side of the bridge. It was quite spectacular and potentially dangerous if you were caught trying to traverse the bridge on foot or by golf cart as we witnessed some people doing. Tuesday morning, we walked into town for some souvenir shopping and bought a few books on the history and settlement of the Bahamas, including “Out Island Doctor”. For our 35th wedding anniversary dinner we had Veal Osso Bucco, Conn Creek Cabernet and a nice Champagne.

Tuesday 4/19: By morning the weather had settled down and miraculously, the severely eroded beach at the Low Place had re-built itself and all of the erosion was gone! With calmer wind and seas, we moved to Hope Town on Elbow Cay, home of the famous lighthouse. After lunch on Wednesday we took the dinghy into town and for exercise walked the entire northern end of Elbow Cay, a round trip of five miles in the hot afternoon. As a reward, Karrie was looking forward to a stop at the “Sugar Shack” in town for a refreshing strawberry ice cream cone. To our surprise, the Sugar Shack was closed due to a recent fire! Needless to say, we were both very disappointed, but not to be deterred, she remembered that the beach front bar at the Hope Town Lodge also sold ice cream, so we headed there. The ice cream shop adjacent to the bar was closed, but the bartender managed to get a strawberry cone for her anyway. I opted for a cold draft Sands Bahamian beer.

Thursday 4/21: We revisited one of our favorite places, Tahiti Beach on the southern tip of Elbow Cay. The beach is a long curving sandbar exposed at low tide and with the full moon the tide was unusually low, exposing more of the sand bar and making the beach much larger and wider.

Friday 4/22: Continuing south we cruised into Little Harbour, a small cove on Great Abaco Island at the southern end of the Sea of Abaco and home of Pete’s Pub and Gallery. The harbor is generally home to dozens of sea turtles and again we saw turtles popping up all around the boat. On Saturday we went exploring with the dinghy in Old Robinson Bight, a large bay with numerous mangrove islands, rocks, and small cays. We packed a picnic lunch and headed out to catch the incoming high tide, as the whole area is very shallow. Last year we explored the bight and found an abundance of wild life and the interesting blue holes, caves connected to the ocean. This year we were even luckier. We found seven different blue holes! And at the northern end of the bight we came upon herds of turtles. There were literally hundreds of turtles swarming in front of and around the dinghy as we slowly motored along. It was a truly incredible sight to see so many turtles at one time! Some of the turtles would surface like a submarine broaching at full speed, breaking the surface with a load splash, really incredible and something we have never witnessed before. We also spotted a few stingrays and several sharks. Toward the end of our adventure, we got into a very shallow area and I had to walk the dinghy to deeper water. As I walked, we spotted several large conch and found four that were mature keepers. That night we had cracked conch for dinner!

Tuesday 4/26: The lagoon between Deep Sea Cay and Great Abaco is another beautiful area for dinghy exploration and one we had not previously visited. We anchored at Snake Cay and took the dinghy through the cut between Snake and Deep Sea Cays. The lagoon is wide with lots of small cays and rocks, as can be seen in today's photo. The Abaco Island side has dense pine forests. The water is crystal clear and between 2-5 feet deep. In calm areas, the bottom features are clearly visible. We saw lots of sea stars, turtles, stingrays, and large fish. On Snake Cay there is a large abandoned ship port and we wondered what it had been; a mystery to be solved. Following our dinghy exploration, we headed back to Tahiti Beach and along the way caught a Mutton Snapper.

Wednesday 4/27: Back to Marsh Harbour for a final shopping trip Thursday morning at Maxwells and for a propane fill. Coming into the harbor a stingray leapt into the air right in front of us!

Thursday 4/28: In the afternoon we moved over to Man O War and anchored at the Low Place again. Every morning we were greeted by a small flock of Tropic Birds, the long tailed birds we first saw at Conception Island. One morning we spotted six Tropic Birds performing aerobatics. On a relaxing day I was finishing re-reading “Out Island Doctor” purchased just 10 days earlier. This season we visited many more of the islands Evans Cottman described in his book. On the next to last page of the book he talked about the Owen-Illinois lumber company moving their operation from Grand Bahama Island to Great Abaco and building a large seaport on…..Snake Cay. The mystery of the abandoned seaport had just been solved! On Friday afternoon I spotted a pod of porpoise frolicking off in the distance. As they drifted closer, I started to drum on the side of the boat which made them curious and approached us even closer. There were between six to ten porpoises in the pod, rolling on the surface and occasionally making small leaps.

Sunday 5/1: We attended church on Man O War Cay and were pleasantly surprised that so many of the locals recognized and remembered us from last year. It was good to “catch up”! Sunday afternoon we sailed NW to Great Guana Cay in preparation for making the Whale Cay Passage.

Monday 5/2: The weather for the past two weeks had been absolutely perfect, slightly breezy, mild temperatures, and no rain. But now we need to think about heading home and looking out at the long range forecast, there are predictions of a late season cold front moving into the Bahamas. But this morning we have a brisk SE wind, perfect for heading NW up the chain of out islands. The first leg is from Great Guana to Green Turtle Cay by going out into the ocean through Loggerhead Channel, past Whale Cay on the ocean side, and return to the Sea of Abaco by the Whale Cay Channel. This passage can be treacherous but today we have 3-4 foot ocean swells spaced far apart in the ocean and a 2-3 foot chop in the channels. We stopped at Green Turtle Cay for ice and lunch. Looking at the weather forecast again, the front was now predicted to stall, which will delay our trip. There would also be strong NW winds and thunderstorms on Wednesday night, so we need a good anchorage with good all around protection. So we decided to head for Great Sale Cay, an uninhabited island on the Little Bahama Bank. From Green Turtle, we first sailed to Angel Fish Point, the northernmost point of Great Abaco to spend the night. Along the way we had good luck fishing, putting three Mutton Snapper, an Amberjack, and a Yellowtail Snapper in the cooler and we released a large four foot barracuda.

Tuesday 5/3: As the front approached, the wind shifted to the south, which is good broad reach for our long run to Great Sale Cay, due west. The wind was brisk, stronger than predicted, and we make good speed under full sail making 6-8 knots most of the day. We had some storms around us and the wind sometimes gusted up to 20-22 knots, so we reefed in the genoa without hurting our speed much. We arrived at Northwest Harbour at Great Sale around 3:30pm. We were the only boat there. We anchored well up in the harbor where we had protection for the expected W and NW winds late Wednesday night.

Wednesday 5/4: We spent the day at Great Sale’s Northwest Harbour in anticipation of sever weather. We had some rain and thunderstorms in the afternoon, but at sunset the weather was totally calm and peaceful. Today we had a couple of turtles popping up around the boat and we do not think they are used to seeing boats because they immediately splashed down after surfacing. The sever weather is predicted for the middle of the night (why is it always in the middle of the night?) so we will report in the morning how it went. Hopefully we can head to West End, Grand Bahama tomorrow.

The crossing from Eleuthera to the Abacos is 49 nautical miles, into the Atlantic Ocean with deep (up to 15,000 feet) water. We pulled anchor at Egg Island and were under way with both sails up by 7:30am. The wind was good for our crossing with a heading of due north. The wind was variable out of the east to south and from 6 to 12 knots all morning which pushed along at a speed of between 4 to 7 knots. Then around 1:00pm the wind died and we had to start motoring. The seas were mostly calm with large swells spaced far apart. Along the southern coast of Great Abaco Island we had two strikes on the trolling lures with one hook up of a small (about 2 feet) bull dolphin (mahi). The dolphin put up a good fight, leaping into the air several times attempting to shake the hook. As we boated him, Karrie had the fishing rod and I pulled him in with the net under him, he spit the hook and landed in the net! But then (somehow) he jumped out of the net, hit the deck of the boat and slid back into the water. He was full of energy, won the battle, and escaped. He was a beautiful fish but for once, I did not regret loosing this fight.

As we continued up the coast of Great Abaco, about 2 miles outside Little Harbor Cut (our destination) a rain storm moved in and we basically had to idle offshore until it passed, as it would have been too risky to transit the cut in the reef during the storm with poor visibility and high winds. The storm had winds up to 27 knots from the north and the seas picked up substantially, but we just motored into it for about an hour or so. Once the storm was clear of the cut we came through without issue. We arrived at our anchorage at Lynyard Cay just north of the cut at 6:30pm, stowed the sails, cleaned up, and had a well deserved sundowner. Dinner was Stone Crab Claws we had purchased in Spanish Wells. They were huge (as you can see from the photo) and delicious! Five claws weighed 2 pounds!