One of the things we’ve been most surprised at on this trip is how little sailing we’ve been able to do. There are very few spots along the ICW that can be sailed, and when we’ve headed offshore, there were many times we either needed to make time upwind or the wind was too light. […]
We arrived at the uninhabited Allan-Pensacola Cay mid-afternoon. Again, we’d heard this was a really popular anchorage, but there was only one other boat when we arrived, and over our two days here, there were only ever three other boats anchored with us at a time. We launched Squall so we could explore the island. […]
We sailed off the anchor this morning, making about as much leeway as headway between the current and almost non-existent breeze, but it was nice to just sail for a little bit. After a half hour with no wind filling in, we gave up and awoke Puff (our nickname for our engine) from his slumber […]
We left Old Bahama Bay, and our first experience reading Bahamian waters was a bit of trial by fire. We had two good sets of charts on hand – the Explorer charts on my phone and our Navionics charts which had been confirmed as accurate for the Indian Rocks Passage – but it was still […]
We were on the customs dock in Old Bahama Bay, West End, Grand Bahama at 7:30 am and got everything in order. Chris went ashore to clear in with Customs once they opened, and I restored order to the inevitable disarray of an offshore passage. I was so excited, but I didn’t dare text anyone […]
I slept better than I expected I would, but I’d be lying if I claimed not to be nervous. The Gulf Stream can be a true beast if conditions aren’t good, and even in settled conditions I had no idea what to expect. Besides, I’m always nervous before an offshore passage, even though I’ve now […]
It was weird to spend Christmas away from family. This isn’t the first time we haven’t been home – a few years ago, Chris, his parents and I spent Christmas in the jungle in Belize. And last year, we had our very first Christmas (celebrated on Christmas day) in our own apartment due to the […]
This week was all about final prep for the trip. Vero has a fantastic, free bus system, and on Saturday we headed over to Target and Lowes to get some school supplies to bring to donate in the islands, and we needed ratchet straps and a heat gun. It took longer than we’d hoped, but […]
The trip to Vero Beach took us through a narrow channel surrounded by spoil islands and shoals – in places the water was only inches deep right up to the edge of the channel – but it was a pretty trip. We topped off our fuel before pulling into our slip, and the first thing […]
We didn’t have far to go yesterday, so we started the morning with breakfast in town at a cute little bakery. We even got a bit of breeze (and by a bit I only mean 5-10kts mostly on the nose), and the Indian River was deep enough outside the ICW channel that we were able […]