We'll after almost 4 months in the Bahamas it's time to start the trek north once again. We had a fantastic time and met some great new friends as well as rekindled old friendships. We spent the last 2 days in a marina in Marsh Harbour cleaning and preparing Dagny for
the next leg of our journey. My to do list included washing the hull with vinegar to get off the caked on salt, changing engine and transmission oil, filling diesel and water tanks as well as giving the equipment a good check over. In the meantime Bev cooked and froze 5 dinners, did laundry and cleaned the cabin top to bottom. This was the first marina we had been to since Vero Beach and boy did the long hot showers ever feel good at the end of our busy days.

We had been watching the weather closely for a week or so and it looks like we have a great weather window to sail to Southport NC in one shot, a distance of around 550 miles. We slid Dagny out of her berth at noon on a Monday but had to wait for my brother Larry to arrive from Hudson. It's always great to have an extra hand for these longer trips and his experience will be a great help to us. I had warned him that we would probably leave right away and we weren't kidding. He was barely on board before the anchor was up and we were off in order to transit the infamous Whale Passage in daylight. The weather forecast looks good for the next few days, the only hick is we have to be in port by Thursday night to avoid a nasty cold front coming down the coast on Friday. We’ll be out of cell coverage until sometime Thursday but we’ll post something once we get in. So far we’re off to a great start, it’s 2 a.m. we’re sailing in 15 knots of warm breeze under an almost full moon. Larry and Bev, my editor, are asleep and I’m still in shorts and bare feet. Meanwhile Otto is doing his thing as Dagny glides along.

Today’s picture is of one of our last sunsets.