Had a great night at Big Stirrup Cay anchorage, which is on the south side of a private island owned by the cruise companies. Lots going on there during the day but I guess everyone returns to the ship to sleep so it was really quiet and no wind.

We hoisted anchor at 6 am for our last leg to get back to Grand Bahama Island and the Ocean Reef Yacht Club. The sea as almost like glass with no wind at all. Awe actually had to slow our progress down to add an hour to our transit time so there would be enough water in the channel going in via a rising tide. The last thing you want is to be dealing with a grounding (even in sand) at the end of a 10 hour day. But, as it turned out, the tide table was not too accurate and we arrived pretty well at low tide. There is one spot in the entrance to the harbour where it was 5' deep so we had a couple of inches to spare but we made it.

We picked up a helium ballon floating in the water as they pose a serious threat to marine life that mistakenly eat these things thinking they're food.
There were several tankers out today as well and 1 cruise ship that was idling along at 1 knot for hours so not sure what the deal was there but we were not alone out there over the 58 nm trip.

Our knot (or not in this case) meter decided not to work today so we only had our speed over ground reading from the gps. It wasn't a big deal except the knot meter gives you the speed of the boat through the surrounding water vs. the gps which tells you your actual speed. In this environment the difference gives you an idea if you are going with or against any current. So today when we were 20 miles off shore our boat speed started dropping. We didn't know if it was a problem with our engine, prop or if we were dragging something. I turned the boat 180° and we picked up almost a knot of speed at the same engine rpm so that meant we were going against a building current. Even out in the middle of the passage with several thousand feet of water there was a current!

So, after 3 10 hour days we're 180 nm north of where we were when we left and in a good place to wait for our weather window to cross back over to Florida. We may have an opportunity to go on March 13th as the forecast looks now, but that's pretty far out for any degree of accuracy at this point. So we'll chill here for a while and touch it out in the pool and hot tub!

https://youtu.be/pZkGe5j-h_4?si=F7SuihfxP_xTLrpn

Today's shot of the admiral joying the weather and very calm seas crossing from the Berry Islands to Grand Bahama Island. Quite the different conditions from the passage going through here 6 weeks ago when we were heading south.