We are back home in the USA after 95 days of sun, sand, crystal clear blue waters and lots of Bahamian adventures. We crossed over from a place called Great Sale Cay up on the northern Bahamas Banks across the Gulf Stream to Fort Pierce, Florida on Sunday afternoon to Monday morning April 11th. Great Sale is an uninhabited Cay (always pronounced Key) in clear blue-green waters, with nothing around it but more water. It is shaped like a long, narrow island with an open lobster claw shaped harbor in one end. There were 13 vessels there with us overnight on Saturday night, with room for plenty more. The sunset was spectacular, but no green flash. The sunrise was otherworldly. The sky and the sea were exactly the same color so boats appeared to be floating in the air above a completely flat calm sea. A picture of OZ that morning is above (check the gallery for others).

In the last blog, we had gone into a place called Green Turtle Cay, supposedly to just anchor and go on for a long trip out to Great Sale Cay (in preparation for crossing to Florida). But, we couldn't go without seeing the little town of New Providence. Ken was sad to not go in after being away from the Abacos for six years. The Abacos were their old cruising grounds when they first started cruising in 2002 and they knew so many people and places to show us. Peaches and I were committed to staying with our exit plan for going home, but felt sad to see the town from our boat and not go in. So, we dropped our dinghies and went into White Sound, then Black Sound to check out potential places to stay with the boats next year. Then we went into town, promising ourselves to be in the boats and underway by 3:00.

On the dock, we met a conch fisherman just setting up his stand. His boat was full of large inhabited conch shells, some of the largest I've seen. He was cleaning some smaller conch, standing on the sand and using the end of the cement dock for his table. He was friendly and talkative (a real businessman) and there were no flies buzzing around the cleaned conch (quite a difference from our last conch guy in Eleuthera, where the cleaned conch was alive with them). He was such a good salesman that we promised him we would be back for conch salad later.

Walking into town was a little like Hope Town, but the number of tourists/cruisers was less, the size of the wooden homes a little smaller, the streets a little narrower, and the number of white skinned people like us was less. There were a lot more smiles from other people we walked past and those in the stores. There were shops, museums, custom houses, grocery stores and liquor stores, and again meticulously clean streets and yards throughout the town. Peaches needed to get a phone call made and, like in Hope Town, none of the Beltaco phone booths were operational; clean, but not working. She made the hike out of town, up a hill and to the phone company to call AT&T and get her iPhone turned on so we would have it when we returned to the US in a couple of days. The iPhone is a powerful addiction and can even lure her up a large hill to make it happen. By the way, there was one phone booth outside, and two desks inside.......only one of the three phones worked. Doesn't sound like their business, the only one in the Bahamas, has any competition to make it try harder.......can you hear me now???

We found some of the fabric we'd seen in the Abacos, called Androsian, a batik-like fabric with fish, lizards, and of course turtles on rich, brightly colored fabrics. We got tablecloths and napkins, our first touristy purchase in the Bahamas in two years of cruising. We were giddy with delight! Normally we are buying gas, diesel, food or liquor......ho hum!

We ate lunch in a liquor store, David's. We ate pizza and drank cold beers...occupying four to the six bar stools in the store. Four other cruisers were there, finishing their lunches so we got to talk boats and marinas with them. They were all leaving the next day, leaving their boats in Green Turtle for the summer. We have so far to go before we do that. After another walk through town and a trip to the grocery store (Romaine for $5 and not $8 like other places, even if they have fresh lettuce. We got giddy again!), we went back to the dock.

The King of Conch was there with his wife and daughter, making conch salad and fritters, and whatever else you would like (conch only). He motioned us over and we were mesmerized. A picture of me pulling one of them out of the shell (the one we ate) is in the gallery, ugh! He then cleaned that conch, showing Ken the steps and pulling two long worm-like things out of the conch and proudly eating them! His wife smiled, saying he loved those gummy worms. We got past that, and watched him fine chop the conch, add lots of lime juice and fresh tomatoes, onions and a dash of "special sauce" to make it hot. It was divided into two bowls for ten dollars and Ken and Connie and I went at it, lips burning from the special sauce. The conch tasted fresh, was tender, and it was good (did not taste like chicken). The conch had been snug as a bug in his shell only 10 minutes before. Whew!

Back at the boats, Peaches slipped into the water to make sure our zinc was still there, behind the prop (and to drop her body temperature after the long walk). The zinc is a metal that is a little lower on the periodic table so stray electrical currents in the water (usually there when you are at a dock or a crowded harbor) will attack it and not the metal thru-hulls on the boat's bottom. It was intact.........saving her from donning her diving suit, tank et al to replace it. Off we went, hot and sweaty and looking for a good place to anchor for the night.......................Powell Point to Powell Cay.

A peaceful nigh was had in Powel Cay. The weather has been so stable and benign that it is not hard to find a place to anchor as the prevailing winds are negligible. A longer day of motoring on Saturday took us to Great Sale. We both are getting pretty excited about getting home to civilization at this point. Although Peaches really doesn't like the overnights we have to do to get back across the Gulf Stream.

So, to finish the story, we motored all night, the dawn breaking behind us (after setting in front of us last night. It had made a full circle of the earth while we kept on moving west at , you guessed it, 6 knots. We got into the entryway for Fort Pierce, weaving through the small fishing boats and the large motor yachts coming in too. Just after we got into the inlet, Connie called us and said they were having some problems, the belt failed on the alternator so they weren't making any power for the instruments and, the engine overheated because the belt for the antifreeze coolant wasn't working either. They kept going forward as the salt water pump to cool the engine was still going.......a bad problem, but a good place to have it. They called TowBoat US and within a half hour, they were being pulled at 7.5 knots up the ICW to Vero Beach, were we were heading. We chugged along with My Blue Heaven and got in a while after they were safely on the mooring ball. We hooked up with them, on the same ball, and after 20 hours, turned off the engine. There is nothing better than the silence after such a long time.

We all told our stories of the long night at sea and congratulated them on their rescue and their luck, cleaned up our messes and decided to clean Ken's fish, another bigger and finer edition of the tuna he caught coming out of Georgetown. We took it into the dock where there is a table with a hose just for cleaning fish. Also, I don't think Connie wants us to clean another fish on the boat, we made a horrible mess last time. Some appreciative men stopped by as Ken made steaks out of the tuna, the last guy asking for the carcass for his crab traps. Now, we just have to get Connie to prepare them for grilling (she will).

We rented a car today, Tuesday, and went to the local airport to check in to customs, It is usually a dry, frustrating process, with numbers and permits to be issued. This guy, though, was a prince, a prince of comedy. He answered our Canadian friend's questions and then went on to say that their other problems at different customs offices were due to this: those people get dumber the more north you get! It explained everything. He gave out his card and said if we ever had problems again to call him up and he would straighten the dumb -------- (federal employees) out. SO, expecting the worst, we got quite a show, all in a little international airport with no plane visible bigger than a single prop. We mentioned all the hoops us honest people have to go through and that probably none of the drug runners or other bad guys bother with all this paper. He said, "no, actually we have arrested four of them who came in and were on a wanted list. Yep, we got them." So, that just proves that even bad guys have to stand in line to be told they don't have the right documents once in a while.

We are working on the boat the rest of the week, redoing teak and generally cleaning it up so that there won't be so much work for us to do in Charleston, where it will be hot and humid and impossible to work at the boat yard (It was so hot that.......). Kirby, our crew is coming in on Monday to the train station Orlando (from his home in Charleston), so we are starting to look at windows to go from here to Charleston in three days, two nights (up the east coast shipping lanes with all the big-boy tankers and cruise ships).

SO, more stories are likely to happen, but for now, we are safe, healthy and happy to be back stateside. We just went to our first Walgreens pharmacy and Public's grocery store today and had to be pulled out by Ken, all of us in shopper's shock. Star of the Sea, sleeping the sleep of satisfied customers, Out.