The crossing
24 April 2015
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.