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