So we left Nassau and Starbucks behind and headed to the Eluthera Cay of Royal Island. The wind was spot on the nose for the first time since the Caribbean, but luckily the waves were not that bad. We had protection from the cays around New Providence, AKA Nassau. It was a long trip to Royal Island, but the protection in that harbor was wonderful. We slept like little snuggly babies. It was cool out and we even needed blankets! The thing is that 79 is now chilly! I never thought I would have acclimated to hot weather! We both can’t stand sleeping when it’s hot and anything over 68 degrees was hot for both of us before we headed south! Human adaptation is fascinating! The water has turned green, BTW. I guess we have said goodbye to the Bahamas blue. As soon as we went north from Nassau it was green and every picture I see of the Abacos there is green water. I wish I had known! I would have done something. I don’t know what, but maybe swam more? I will miss the water here. We will miss making water that’s for sure. It seems like such a miracle every time we turn saline water into fresh drinking water!
The Royal Island harbor was a bit creepy as well as protected. It has ruins all over the land, but there was a very strange ship that came in, a box of a ship and it went beside these trailers on land and then left right at dark. The thing didn’t even look seaworthy and where it was going at that hour was weird and the wind was really picking up. Luckily, there was one other cruising sailboat anchored in the harbor or else it would have felt even creepier. Of course maybe it was that we had just watched Fringe an X-files-like TV series. I know we are dorks…
So America is very much on our minds. We keep looking at the weather and it looks like we have a weather window on the 9th. The swell is supposed to be 1-2 feet and SE winds which will have been SE for a day and a half. No North component to either wind or waves! Yay! I really hope that is true. We are both anxious to get across. We have many people we are looking forward to seeing and as soon as we cross we should be meeting up with our friends Jody and Rene who visited us in Maine and then onto see Spencer’s Mom and G-parents while the boat is moored in St Augustine. We are burned out on open ocean sailing and may take the ICW to get to Southport to See Dan and Deb and then onto New Bern NC to see family and friends and then it will be as quick of a trip as we can make it to Maine. We have A LOT of work to do to get the next 2 volumes of our DVD series completed. I have to come up with music and have been practicing the guitar every chance I get and Spencer, after I macro edit will be doing the fine tuning and most if not all the narration. He does it extemporaneously and is an incredible amount of work for him, but he really is the best one to do it. He is focused and disciplined. If I had to do it would be a meandering long boring story. As it is I think he does a great job of distilling what we experienced into a concise, cohesive story. At least I hope that is what our viewers think!
BTW, if anyone has taken the outside run from Oregon Inlet to points north how was it? Where did you anchor before leaving the inlet and how was the inlet? I am hoping it isn’t a local knowledge only inlet. I think we are going to try to make it to Cape May from there. We do not want to do the Delaware river/bay thing again, and don’t have time for the Chesapeake on the way north.

Tomorrow we are headed to Green Turtle Cay. Because of the weather window and our push north we will be doing a very abbreviated Abacos Cruise, but don’t worry dear ones we will visit again!

Spencer caught another unknown fish. We let him go, but does anyone know what it is??