After 12 days waiting our weather window was here so we were up and off the dock under a full moon at 4:45 am on Friday morning. We would have left sooner as we had an 80 nm passage ahead of us but we had to wait for the tide which bottomed out at 3:30 to start coming in. Seeing as it is a full moon the tides are higher/lower than normal and the water in the channel is pretty shallow at low tide even in normal tide conditions. This gave us an extra 10" of water. Going aground in sand isn't the worst thing that can happen, but going aground in the dark in a narrow channel with rollers coming in is another thing altogether.

We could hear the waves crashing on the beach from the dock, which was close to a mile away so no telling what we were in for. But, it turns out to be waves in the 1.5-2' range so no problem. Once we were out in the deeper water things were pretty good. The recently cleaned boat speed transducer was working perfectly too so we had the full complement of instruments and chart plotting gear. Waves and 8 knot wind coming from the port stern quarter so they would both be helping to push us along. Not enough to sail but we put the jib out which gave us an extra 3/4 knot of speed and helped to soften the rocking of the boat in the waves.

We got hailed by a cruise ship paralleling us a bit further out telling us he was going to be turning into Freeport harbour soon so we had to alter course to pass to his stern. We had to alter course for a couple of moles to give him lots of room but it was good of the guy to call and let us know though. The sun came up and the weather continued to cooperate. With the gulf stream heading north for almost half of the crossing we would be pushed northwest vs having to fight it so that was in our favour.

We took turns having naps in the cockpit nd while Sam was asleep I spotted something odd on the horizon dead ahead of us. It looked like a dust devil but was in fact the beginning of a waterspout forming under a dark cloud. It gradually built its way up to the cloud with a long thin wavy line of water. It only lasted a minute or 2 but it was pretty neat to see. It was nothing like the full in tornado we saw over Nassau a few months back and it did dissolve quickly. A bit later Sam saw another 1 forming off in the distance under another black cloud but we were already past that and shortly after the sun came out for the rest of the day. No rainbow unfortunately but no harm either so we'll take that.

We had our usual complement of flying fish escorting across and a new marine animal as well. When first sighted it looked like an inflated ziplock back bobbing across the waves but once up close we saw a transparent sail with a brilliant blue body attached in the water. Apparently they are called Velella or sail jellyfish. Very cool looking critters.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velella

Throughout the day the wind clocked around about 180° and ranged anywhere from 2-9 knots and the waves did a full 270° shift ranging from 1-3'. But interestingly enough, this is exactly what Windy had predicted and we managed to maintain a pretty good speed in the 6.5-7 knot range. The Gulf Stream was paying off. We got into Lake Worth and managed to find a spot to anchor by 4:45 so a full 12 hours and 80.5 nm. We made it!

Next task was to check in with customs and for that we would use the CBP ROAM app. The app has 2 part authentication with the 2nd step being a code texted to our cell phone, which had a US sim card which we hadn't used for 4 months. Surprisingly it booted up and worked after a few minutes. So I submitted the entry report on the app and a few minutes later we had our call with the agent. The guy couldn't have been nicer explaining all the changes to the recently changed US Alien policy, which affects Canadian travellers, and he even approved us as verified travellers meaning we are low risk. All done in about 10 minutes and we're legal and cleared for our trip north and home!

Tonight's shot was taken by Lynn a few weeks back and shows Amaruq as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! She has been our home for 6 months now!

(can't believe most of these guys are still alive...and performing!)
https://youtu.be/YRglhaeokqQ?si=-H0_gA3ttaq86y6H