We sailed into Elizabeth harbor after our epic sail day....

As we entered the harbor we quickly found ourselves stuck on a reef... After several hours and unbelievable help from the cruising community Raven was free but had sustained substantial damage to her keel. After a long night of running pumps to keep her dry we motored to the boatyard where we would be lifted out of the water on a travel lift to inspect the damage...

Everything was going well during the lift and Raven was about 10 feet out of the water when it happened......

A cable broke on the travel lift and Raven fell to the water and rocks below with a loud crack .... It was over ! Raven laid there in silence with water pouring into her from the large cracks and openings she received in the fall.

Currently the insurance company has totaled her and I am still in Georgetown removing my personal items from her and getting ready to strip her of the many nice things she had been fitted with for this journey...

I am ok and will decide when and how to continue this dream... Unfortunately it will not be with my Raven...

Captain Gary
S/V Raven

We left Staniel with a stiff breeze and forecasted winds to 30 knots. We decided to try the bank side and head for Georgetown on Great Exuma. After sailing for about 3 hours we were making good progress but the water was choppy so we talked to some people we met the day before on a Grand Banks trawler name Sirene Song and they said the water on the other side was beautiful...

We headed for the next cut and soon were in the sound... Flat water with 18 to 20 kts of wind on the beam.. Perfect

We had all 4 sails up and sailed at 7.5 kts for the next 5 hours under blue sky's.
Fishing all the way... 1 barracuda and 1 big something that got away!

The day was almost over as we approached our destination.

We arrived at Allen Cay and dingy'd over to the beach were you are greeted by the Iguanas who live on the island. As soon as we pulled up on the beach they came out of the grass and walked down the beach to us. Allen Cay is a protected sanctuary for this rare and endangered species.

We moved on to Highbourne Cay, Compass Cay, and Staniel Cay.
Staniel Cay was fun and had a great bar/restaurant named the Staniel Cay Yacht club... We met some great people there and had a good stopover there.

We spend the next few days sailing up the Berry Island chain stopping at many beautiful places including Great Harbor Cay where Jack Nicklaus was parked beside us for 2 days.

We left the Berry's and headed for Nassau.... After arriving and seeing all the hotels and mega yachts in Nassau it was clear this was not the real Bahamas but rather Las Vegas in the sea.

We quickly set sail for Allen Cay at the top of the Exumas were we knew we would find the Bahamas again!

We ( my brother Ron and I ) pulled away from the dock in Marathon on Feb 21st and headed to Rodriguez Key to overnight before crossing to Bimini in the Bahamas. The weather forecast was perfect so after a short night sleep we were off at 3:30 am... the gulf stream was generally flat with good 10 to 15 knots of wind which made for a great sail... we caught 1 Bonita tuna on the way but sent him back to grow bigger. at 2:00 in the afternoon we spotted land! at 3:30 we were tying up at the Big Game Club in Bimini to clear in to the Bahamas...

after spending the night in Bimini we sailed around looking for fish most of the day and then anchored at Gun Cay for lunch and a quick snorkel. we headed off for Cat Cay and then across the Bahama banks where we would spend the next 70 miles in water that was crystal clear and between 10 to 15 feet deep... all 70ish miles..... we dropped the hook at 10 pm in flat calm water
35 miles from land in 10 feet of water and had a good nights sleep...


The following day at 6 am we were sailing again. We arrived at Chub Cay about 2 o'clock and were on a mooring at Fraizers Hog Cay by sunset. We dingy'd in to the Berry Island club only to discover it was a 1 man operation with Howard being the cook, bartender, and every thing else. We ordered dinner that took about 3 hrs for him to make for the 4 of us with myself having just a BLT!

Dave's fish/dinner