AND SO WE ARE BACK STATESIDE. It's a strange feeling, even after only a few months.
After Charlotte left us in Great Harbor Cay we did an overnight to West End, on Grand Bahama. It looked like we had a small but useable window the next day to cross to Florida. However, we got up and checked the weather once more (we were anchored just on the north side of the jetty that leads into the marina and got an internet connection on the boat), and the weather window had closed. We decided not to go and a few hours later the wind picked up and it seemed like it would be pretty miserable out there. There was no place to go to hide from the on-coming front, so we ducked into the Old Bahama Bay Marina where they were luckily having a deal on slips, and spent the next few days there waiting out weather with a whole bunch of other boats. We had a blast, bbbqed on the grills provided right near the docks, lounged around the pools, borrowed the resort's bikes. It was totally absurd and so much fun. And finally the big day to make the crossing came. Everyone was ready.

We left around 5 am, hoping to cross the stream and get as far north as possible, running a couple days, as the weather permitted. The day started out great, not to much wind, so we kept the engine ticking over, but man does that stream make you fly. We had Daisy going faster than we ever could have dreamed.
We kept trying to tune into the VHF weather and around 5 pm we could finally hear it. Unfortunately the weather we heard was not what we wanted. "Severe thunderstorms are predicted." Oh, great. We were 30 miles offshore, already above Fort Pierce and 55 miles from Port Canaveral. So, we ran. sails up and engine running, heading north as fast as we could, our hearts in our throats. And they did come. Big booms of thunder and lightening flashes lighting up the whole sky in brilliant yellows and oranges and reds, woven in and amongst the clouds. We kept going, there was nothing else we could do. The storms started about 9.30 pm and finally abated by around 2.30 am, receding into the distance, with only the flashes of lightening reminding us they were still out there. We pulled into the Port at about 3.30 and tied up to a dock at the Yacht Club for the rest of the night.
Clearing in Customs the next day was very easy, and then we headed up the waterway. Made it almost to Titusville and then we got stuck waiting for a bridge for an hour and a half and had another thunderstorm roll through. Yesterday we made it the few miles to Titusville and have been waiting out the last of the bad weather here. We're hoping to move out of here this afternoon and head north as fast as we can.