We had heard about “The Whale” and the “rages” that occurred at the “Whale” - a “rage” is when there is a great force of wind causing large waves and rough seas.
The water bounces off of reefs and shoals creating great waves and white caps making a passage dangerous even for large boats. It was another among many “worries” that Wiley has carried with throughout our trip - “Could we get through the Whale Passage in our little boat?”! Wiley had talked about this so often I too began to worry about the “RAGE”.

The weather had to be settled for our little boat to go through the Whale Passage, which runs outside into the Atlantic and then back into the Sea of Abaco. We had thought about waiting until Tuesday to make this trip but seeing all of the boats on our dock head out of Green Turtle and many confirmations that the “Whale” was settled today caused us to leap at the chance to join the other cruisers. Sailors confidence is often influenced by the thinking of those around you.... “if they are going, then we should too”. So, like lemmings we joined the group.

As we prepared to leave Green Turtle we had to settle up our bill for dockage for 8 nights at Green Turtle Club and Marina. Yikes! we had not anticipated staying at a marina for that long of a period of time but the weather, our 40th anniversary - YES 40 YEARS TOGETHER (and this last year being with each other 24/7!!!), as well as waiting for another ‘weather window’ kept us tied to the dock. They have a special deal that whatever $$ you spend on meals or drinks is deducted from your dockage fee. We did such a good job eating and drinking many “Yellow Birds” that our dockage was free. However, of course our meals and drinks were not - but even so our bill was in our minds reasonable. However, we now need to exercise more and cut out some (but not all!- remember that we ARE with each other 24/7) of the rum in our diet. We left Green Turtle Cay Marina - with the fine dining, rum drinks, swimming pool, and dockage with plans to anchor in Marsh Harbor. It turned out that the “raging whale” was more like a “swimming guppy” - it was a smooth ride on a beautiful 80+ degree day with soft southeasterly winds and 4 hours after leaving Green Turtle we were setting anchor in Marsh Harbor.

The entrance into Marsh Harbor was somewhat shallow, but once inside we found a place to anchor and were surprised when we were setting anchor that Barbara and Merle (along with their dog Mozart) showed up alongside our boat in their dinghy. They were anchored nearby. Ah, friends to share sundowners with once again. Are you sensing a theme of overcoming our fears, or admiring sunsets, or finding any excuse to enjoy some rum/ wine? Retirement may need to include a 12 step program.

We took our dinghy around and up the north side of Marsh Harbor to snorkel on a magical reef - Mermaid’s Reef. It is a protected reef with 2 buoys for small boats to tie onto. Video footage of the two of us donning our snorkel gear and diving is pretty boring, however you can imagine the challenges of getting our old bodies back into the dinghy. We have a rope/plastic step ladder that swings under the dinghy - so while holding on to the side (arms stretched over our dinghy dogs - inflatable boat collar) we try to swing the ladder away to create a fulcrum with our bodies to get over the side of the dinghy. This leads to us landing pretty much face first into the dinghy with our butt in the air and our voice filling the air with many expletives! The first one into the dinghy gets the added benefit of rocking wildly about as our partner gets in next. It is sooo nice when no one else is around and there is no video footage that can be shared.

Marsh Harbor has a lot to offer in the way of resources - groceries, hardware stores, liquor stores, banks, etc. We enjoyed a lovely lunch at Mangos looking out over the harbor and did a little shopping. We then decided to take advantage of the great weather we were having to move to Man-O-War Cay with the hope that we would be able to go “outside” into the Atlantic Ocean through Man o’ War Passage and anchor Les Miserable for a dive on the French Grunt Reef along the way. However, this will once again mean facing the possibility of another ‘rage‘ or maybe not?!