We are back!

We are back! After getting successfully through the winds and squalls in Green Turtle Cay, we dropped the mooring on Sat. morning and left to sail to Great Sale Cay and wait to leave for States on Monday.  After arriving we decided to leave along with another boat on Sunday afternoon instead. This was a poor choice. We should have gone with our original plan.

The winds were light  at first so we motor sailed up past Mantinilla Shoal and out into the Atlantic after dark on Sunday night where we had a bumpy ride in large swells with shifting wind direction all night long keeping us from getting much sleep at all. Monday the wind was again light and we finally decided to motor due west to the Gulf Stream in hopes of getting some assistance from the current. Well that worked and we motor sailed at over 8 kts the rest of the day and through the night until on Tuesday about 5 a.m. we exited the Gulf Stream to turn toward Charleston. The winds were pretty much non existent at that point and without the current to help we just slowly motored north. It made for a slow go. 

The good new was that with such a flat and quiet sea we both could catch up on some much needed sleep. The best part was we had 3 different groups of dolphins meet up with us and swim along in Spunky's bow waves for quite some time welcoming us back. The first group had about 4 or 5 large dolphins and the second and third groups were smaller but each had 7. They would gather at the bow and swim along side Spunky just under the surface and then come out of the water and swim off to the side. They are so graceful and keep pace so effortlessly.  We also saw 6 huge sea turtles swimming past.

 The bad news was that without wind it took us til after 11:00 pm to reach the harbor entrance in Charleston and we did not reach our anchorage until midnight. We were both exhausted and it was challenging to find a spot to drop the anchor in the dark. 

This morning we moved into Charleston City Marina and filled fuel and water tanks and washed all the salt off Spunky. We are trying to take it a little easy. We have heard from another boat that the ICW is quite shallow in spots north of Charleston. We had planned to take off Friday and go up the ICW to avoid the 30 kt. winds forecast off shore for Thursday and Friday. Now we are not sure what we will do. We will have to try to get through the shallow areas at mid to high tide and timing that can be iffy. Then we must go outside again at Winyah Bay or Cape Fear to bypass a bridge at Snow's Cut which is being worked on so that we can no longer fit under it. We will sail overnight and come back inside at Beaufort, NC and then stay on the ICW the rest of the way back.

Things are never easy. However the weather today here is beautiful and warm. We are hopeful that Spring has indeed arrived and we shall be back in the Chesapeake soon. 

Look forward to hearing from everyone on your springtime/summer plans.

E and J

Back in the USA

We are now in Charlestown, SC.  We sailed 400 miles from Great Sale in the Bahamas directly here.  Our timing wasn't good and we arrived here in the middle of the night.  We did great riding the Gulf Stream at over 8 knots.  When we left it there was no wind and we motored the last 24 hours.  I have never seen the ocean so flat.  We had lots of dolphins swim along with us and also saw some giant sea turtles.  It was very pleasant but boring and slow.  I finally took down the main sail and never bothered to turn off the auto pilot or turn the boat.  

Hope you have a wonderful week.  Our phones are now working and we get regular internet almost anytime we want.  I think it will be Netflex tonight. 

Last Wifi

This is our last shot at wifi.  We will check weather in the morning and then take off.  We will leave here, Green Turtle Cay, and then go to either Fox Town or Great Sale Cay.  We will then head out to cross back to the states on Monday.  We were going to leave Sunday but we are going to wait for the waves to settle down.

It's about 500 miles to Charleston.  If we can we will keep going to Beaufort, NC. 

Once there we will travel on the Intra Coastal Waterway.

When we get back we will activate our phones and get internet all the time.  

Tonight we are supposed to have some high winds and rain.  We just had a bad squall with high winds.  We are hopeful that it is over but we may get more.  We tired and ready to get back.  We have met some really great people but I think we are ready to move to land if the boat sells.  

I can always tell where Elyse's head is.  She has been online for two days looking at houses in Baltimore.  We think we can afford it there.  She has even been searching for opportunities to house sit. 

We will check email in the morning before we leave.  We love you and can't wait to see you.

Dad (John) & Mom (Elyse)

Heading back to the USA

This may be the last update until we return to the States. We spent Easter Sunday in Great Guana watching the egg hunt at Nippers which is a very popular outdoor restaurant overlooking the Atlantic. The staff hides eggs in the breakers for folks to hunt with their snorkel gear. We just watched from the restaurants upper deck. We have really enjoyed being anchored for the past few days in Fisher's Bay. We watched several sea turtles swim just off of Spunky's bow. There was a little excitement when a boat began dragging in the anchorage and the owners were not on board. Troy form Dive Guana went out in his motor boat and let out more rode and backed down on the anchor so they wouldn't run up on the rocks or hit another boat.

On Monday due to a shift in the winds we sailed back over to Treasure Cay to wait out the west wind. When the winds come from any direction with a westerly component in the Abacos boats try to find a sheltered anchorage as many of the Cays are exposed to the west. Tuesday morning when the winds became favorable we left Treasure Cay again to sail around the Whale to Green Turtle Cay.

The Whale is a Cay that lies along the Atlantic and boats must go around it out of the Sea of Abaco and open to the swells and waves from the north. It needs to be passed in calm weather. We made it around and we are now on a mooring ball in Black Sound off of Green Turtle Cay. Our outboard is not starting so John rowed over this morning to see if we can get it serviced. Once that is done we will move into Black Sound Marina as we will not be able to easily get to shore and back to the mooring without our outboard. 

The weather guru has forecast high winds and bad squalls for Friday into Saturday morning with gusts from 50 to 70 kts so everyone is trying to find safe harbor for the blow. As I sit here typing the Sound is beginning to fill up with lots of boats. It will be fairly crowded by tomorrow and then the issue of boats dragging their anchors in the high winds becomes a larger problem. It means folks will sit up late watching the boats around them and being prepared to deal with a dragging anchor. We will leave here at the crack of dawn Sat. morning after the winds die down and head for either Strangers Cay or Great Sale Cay and anchor in preparation for crossing the Gulf Stream on Sunday through Tuesday Those cays are both just rocky islands with nothing on them but they provide sheltered anchorage in prevailing winds. We hope to end up in  either Charleston or Beaufort where we will continue up the ICW to the Chesapeake. 

It is really lovely here today. Warm temps and soft breezes. It is hard to believe that things will get really rough on Friday but then we never know for sure how things will be. Often it is not as bad as forecast and sometimes it is worse. 

Yesterday we filled our fuel tanks to the brim so we will have almost enough fuel if we had to motor all the way across the GS. It is mostly just for safety backup as we sail a lot of the time without the engine running. It looks like the wind speed and direction will get us by sail alone at least to the Gulf Stream and then we can ride the GS up to the Carolinas.  

We look forward to being back stateside soon and seeing some close by friends and hearing from the rest of you.

E and J