Starting the journey north
We headed over to Great Guana mid-week after fueling up. There was a storm forming to the north as we left that, thankfully, just missed us. Mike and Emma had headed over earlier and we met up at Grabbers for dinner. It’s crazy to me sometimes that this is just our life out here, and I really am trying to soak up every last second.
I’ve mentioned before that the Whale has a reputation. It’s a difficult spot because you have to head out to sea and back in through a narrow cut between two sections of reef, and it can be treacherous when there’s wind against waves or current, and you don’t want to mess with it when there’s a big sea running. There’s a passage inside called “Don’t Rock”, but it’s shallow with shifting sand and Windara can’t safely navigate it. We were fortunate to have a flat calm morning to make it around with a half meter to a meter of swell rolling through every 7 seconds, which is about as flat as it gets. We were anchor down off the Bluff on Green Turtle in time for work. I was glad to have that part of the trip behind us – it meant we could work our way up the Sea of Abaco to Great Sale Cay if conditions were good, and if not, we’d have an excuse to spend some of our vacation exploring.
Green Turtle is near to our hearts because it’s the first place we really spent time in The Bahamas back in 2022, and I was excited to see how the island had changed since then. We spent Thursday working and at the end of the day Katy and Phil stopped by to invite us to drinks at Pineapples. Chris had to work late, but I hopped aboard and joined them and their guests (Katy’s brother and sister were visiting). It was a blast as always, and I was glad to get one last chance to spend time with them in the islands. Later that night, Chris and I were laying in the cockpit enjoying the stars and happened to catch a SpaceX launch – always cool to see!
I took Friday off – I’ve learned my lesson in years past when I didn’t take the day off before our planned departure and ended up feeling rushed to get everything done. I made blueberry muffins for passage, which is becoming a bit of a departure tradition and spent most of the day cleaning and organizing the boat. This would be our last opportunity to offload garbage until we were back Stateside, so I spent the day getting rid of as much packaging as possible. We also took the chance to grab a few last-minute things at Sid’s (the grocery store), take a short walk, and have breakfast at the liquor store (Plymouth Rock Liquors also serves breakfast, and it’s SO good!).
We’ve always wanted to visit Powell Cay, so after Chris was done with work on Friday, we waved so long to Emma and Mike and sailed over. Windara was fast, and we passed a couple other boats that were headed there too, leaving them well behind. We arrived before sunset and tucked into a good spot, although there was a slight swell wrapping around the island. I’d hoped to be there early enough to explore, but it wasn’t meant to be this trip. It looks like a beautiful little island, but with Great Sale Cay in our sights for today, we hauled anchor at first light.
We had a great sail to Great Sale (see what I did there?). But really, it was. We sailed under main only due to the wind angle (we were pretty deep downwind) and there was one point where we almost needed to motor, but fortunately the wind filled back in. It felt good to take a nice long sail, and it was a good warm-up for the big passage that lay ahead of us, both for us and for Jack. It was just over 9 hours from anchor up to anchor down, and I loved every minute. Just as we started to lower the sails on our approach to the anchorage, the wind started to gust up, and we were thankful to find a nice, protected spot. There was a meteor shower starting tonight and going for the next couple of days, so we headed up on deck to see what we could see. The answer was not much, but we did see a chain of Starlink satellites pass, and it was the first time I’d seen them.
Based on current forecasts, we plan to relax here tomorrow and head out mid-day Monday. While I’m not ready to go, I suppose I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.