So night came and went pretty fast. By the time we set up our thermal night vision cam, ate dinner and hit the sack it was around 23:00. We were up (not bright eyed and bushy tailed) at 03:00 making some coffee and ready to pull up anchor. The anchorage was lit up by the surrounding West Palm/Reviera Beach lights, so unhooking and motoring out the inlet was a breeze. Just as we entered open ocean, Luna Sea hailed us on the radio only a few minutes behind us. With radar, gps, night vision and our VHF we set course to the West End, Grand Bahama Island.

The night sail was extremely uncharacteristic compared to all our other "offshore" night crossings. First, the seas were completely calm, actually bathtub calm and there was NO WIND, unlike our 30+ knots of wind experienced on all other night sails! While we would have preferred sailing to the Bahamas in the serenity of no motors, that wasn't happening today. We motored the whole way to the Bahamas! There wasn't even enough wind for the jib! Derek and I even had the chance to take shifts and catch up on the missed sleep the night before. We navigated around some tanker and cruiseship traffic along with a few other sail and motor vessels and we even dodged between a few thunder and lightning storms - the funnel clouds and rainbows were awesome! We did get a little wet as one storm caught up to us (sorry Steve!) but all in all it was a pretty uneventful trip

We rolled into West End and the Old Bahama Bay Marina around 12:20, right as a huge downpour hit... we could only laugh as anchoring and tying up in the rain has become a standard practice for us! It could be the most beautiful blue sky day and out of nowhere right when we want to drop the hook or pull into a marina, a single black cloud rushes in and dumps on us - only to cease raining just as we shut off the engines! Old Bahama Bay was no exception to the rule - at least we got a shower in today!

After the rain passed, D got the customs paperwork out of the way and we headed to the resort lobby to check out this quiet little town. We borrowed the resort's free, one speed beach cruisers and went for a ride around the Bahama Bay beach homes. After that, we headed to "town", which consists of a few small stores and two restaurants, all of which don't cater to the tourist...guess that's what the resort is there for. There was a somber mood in the town and everyone was wearing black on account of a funeral (which we only learned of after returning to the resort), so we felt a little out of place in bright colored shirts/shorts bopping around town among the crowded streets of locals in black, all of whom were moving from church to a local bar? We headed back to the resort as it started to drizzle a little unsure how different the Bahamas may really be from all the places we traveled before...
Back at the resort, a local fisherman stopped by with Conch and Lobster tail, so we joined our friends, Steve and Bonnie, aboard Luna Sea for a night of drinks and good food. The bugs came out and only attacked Derek (its great hanging outside with him since all the bugs eat him rather than me). We called it a night fairly early so we could get up in the morning for the second full day of motoring towards the Abacos.