We really enjoyed our stay at Tidewater, very nice marina. And we had a lot of fun exploring Portsmouth and Norfolk. But we are homeward bound and it was time to continue on. There is a weather window opening up to go outside to New York, and we decide to …
We didn't spend any time in Norfolk on our way South so we were excited to spend some time exploring it this time around. We booked four nights at the Tidewater marina partly so we'd have lots of time to explore but also so that we could order some spare …
We made a pretty early start and headed out with plans to get all the way to Norfolk today. Not much wind and not much of a great place to sail anyways, so we motored this entire stretch.
It's a lot of bridges through this section but it's pretty easy …
Ended up a short day today. The weather was rainy and gloomy this morning. We considered just staying put where we were but finally decided to just do a small 11NM motor to an anchorage a little further on. A compromose between doing something and doing nothing.
We dawned our …
We spent two nights anchored in Little Alligator River, which gave us a day to just hang out on the boat which was nice.
The next day was very windy, gusting 20 to 25 knots, but in a great direction for us. So we pulled up anchor and rolled out …
We woke up to some large wakes rocking the boat (one downside to anchoring right along the ICW), and so we got up and under way. Nice easy sail off anchor just rolling out the genoa after pulling up the anchor.
We had a nice downwind sail from our anchorage …
One of the reasons we had come to Belhaven was that we needed a pump out, which they offer at the town dock we were at. However the machine wasn't working the office staff said, and someone way suppose to come take a look at it. Well that person showed …
Theone had us up early as she was eager to see a doctor, and we motored straight over to the town docks in Belhaven. It was a bit sketchy getting onto the docks, as it was pretty shallow, but the docks themselves are quite nice. We came in and got …
Theone's ear had been hurting the past couple of days, and although she was hopeful it would get better on it's own, it was only getting worse. We realized we were going to need to get to somewhere so she could see a doctor, and Belhaven was the next logical …
We had a late start to the day, and decided to make a very short sail today just to get us a little further along. We sailed off anchor and out through the channel at Broad Creek and then out towards the sound. About half way the wind ran out …
We spent 4 nights at Homer Smith Marina in Beaufort which were really lovely. It was refreshing to be back at dock, with all the amenities. After some boat cleaning, and showers we were feeling pretty good. We also went out for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant which was quite …
We spent a couple nights at anchor just inside the Beaufort inlet at the anchorage called Fort Macron. We needed the rest so two nights here were perfect with a south wind and good protection. A fair bit of boat traffic, but coming from the ocean it all seemed very …
After much prep and weather watching, we were finally leaving the Bahamas. I liked the idea of jumping into the gulf stream and sailing it north, so we did some research and it seemed like something we could handle. We did a lot of predict wind weather routing and found …
So, our weather window was looking good, and we made the decision to leave in the evening on the 16th. We don't really like leaving right into a night sail, but sometimes that is what works best for the winds, and this was one of those cases.
We had spent …
Winds were much lighter in the morning, and coming from the north directly now, so we had much better protection where we were at Pensocola Cay.
I decided to try a new technique sailing off anchor since we were close to the cliffs. Normally we raise the main sail but …
We woke up to a rather large swell and strong north west winds in front of Coopers Town. It was a pretty uncomfortable morning, so we got underway quickly after waking up.
Raising anchor was a real challenge here, and I had to bust out some gloves. We were in …
Had a nice couple of nights at Manjack Cay. Met up with Bluemoon and got to see their Guineapig setup on their boat (they have two Guineapigs onboard), which was actually quite brillant. I couldn't picture it before seeing it, but it works quite well.
They are heading back to …
We managed to stick out a couple of nights at Great Abaco. We had good wind protection, but quite a bit of waves rolling in, which made it rather uncomfortable at anchor. But it wasn't horrible and maybe our least bad option.
We did however make the most of it …
We were at Crab Cay for a couple of nights while we had some strong southeast winds. We went ashore the first day and I somehow managed to knock a coconut out of a tree with another coconut. We attempted to get a couple more by boosting Aria up a …
We spent two nights at Manjack Cay on the western tip. The anchorage was nicely protected from the winds we had, but at high tide we did get some ocean swell coming in, and so it was a bit rolly now and again because of that. We ended up re-anchoring …
We woke up with plans to cross through Whale Cay Cut today. This little section of the Abacos is very shallow between Whale Cay and Great Abaco Island, and so the deep route is to go out and around Whale Cay. This means timing the tide to avoid currents, etc …
We spent 5 nights at the dock at Orchid Bay Marina on Great Guana Cay. This was a nice break from the constant go of cruising and gave us some time to relax and catch up on work, boat projects, provisioning, etc.
We didn't actually get up to a whole …
After not being able to get a mooring ball in Hope Town, we decided to book a stay at Orchid Bay Marina on Great Guana Cay nearby. We've been on the go a lot lately and we were looking for some down time. Also there was a fair bit of …
Had a bit of a lazy morning before getting underway today. We planned a little 20NM sail up to Hope Town. Nice light winds, but enough to sail, so we raised our full main and sailed off anchor and floated out of the anchorage and due north. Had some fun …
Today was finally the day, making our big crossing north to the Abacos. It was a bit of a northern migration with the 30+ other boats from our anchorage all heading the same way. I'm not sure why, but we were a bit apprehensive about this passage. I guess we …
Our plan today was to make our way to Current Cut (a narrow bit where as the name implies, the current gets quite strong with the tides), and then head over to Egg Island to anchor for the night before heading north across Providence Channel to The Abacos.
The wind …
We spent some time in Rock Sound waiting out some weather, and re-provisioning before heading north again. We had quite a little front come through with enough wind to flip our dingy that was trailing behind the boat. Thankfully we had the paddles tied down on deck, so our only …
We had one last day in the Exumas before crossing back over to Rock Sound and we were putting it to good use by finally going to do the washing machine. We had missed doing it on our first visit to Shroud and kept hearing how fun it was so …
Very lightwind day today. We sailed off anchor nice and easily, and headed towards Shroud Cay.
We put up the spinnaker, realized we needed to head upwind a short bit more (oops), doused the spinnaker, sailed the 10 minutes more we needed, and then raised it once again. It was …
We waited out the strong winds in Pipe Cay anchored close to our friends on Atlas VII. It was quite windy, but we were anchored up pretty well and we were nicely protected as the winds wrapped around from the south through west to north.
Our chain seemed to get …
We woke up feeling a little bit better. Slack tide was around 10 am so we headed over to the aquarium with Atlas and Salty. It was beautiful as always (this is actually the third time we’ve gone) but it’s worth it every time. This time since we …
Our first night anchored in Pipe Creek didn't go so well. The evening was wonderful, but late that night I woke up and noticed the little motor cruiser that we were anchored some distance away from was right up close to us. I suspect we were being influenced more by …
We start this post on Feb 28th after anchoring in Big Majors.
We had stayed up visiting with Atlas until well past cruiser’s midnight the night before so we had a bit of a slow morning. Atlas’s Aria came over for a play while her parents went into …
We had a nice night at anchor, and woke up early to head across the sound. Winds were light to start, but made for an easy sail off anchor.
We were on a close hauled tack for most of the way with a perfect line to Staniel Cay, but shortly …
It had been a busy week so, when we moved back onto the boat we were happy to spend a few quiet days just doing some work / school and continuing to stash away more provisions. We originally planned to head to the Exumas on Saturday but really heavy winds were …
It was finally February 10th, the day we had been excitedly waiting for! Elisa, Rohan and Kamaal were scheduled to arrive in Rock Sound around 4:30 pm which meant that we were going to be leaving the boat and spending some time returning to land life. Since they weren …
Today was our crossing back across Exuma Sound to Eluthera. We had some nice east winds predicted for the day which would give us a nice wind angle to cross the sound. We wanted to leave early to give ourselves lots of time, but this meant going through to Lumber …
We spent three full days at anchor in Rudder Cut. Our friends came down and anchored beside us, and we had a nice few days of just hanging out there. Their daughter turned 9 (pretty cool spot to have a birthday!) and we had some cake which was nice. We …
We spend a full day in Calabash Bay and rowed ashore to hike up to Columbus Monument. It was a bit of a row, and a long hike, but a nice easy one on a wide road with very little traffic. Beautiful views up at the Monument as well. Aria …
Today we had some nice winds to make our way toward Long Island. We finally heading out of Georgetown and then back up the Exumas and back over to Rock Sound Eleuthera as our destination to meet up with family there. But since the winds are good for heading to …
We woke up Saturday morning to lots of wind as expected. It was a little rolly on the ball but wasn’t too bad considering how strong the wind was. We mostly stayed on the boat that day as rowing against that much wind is never fun. It was a …
We left Rudder Cut around 8 am long after most of the other boast we were with. They left at first light so they could do some fishing on the way to George Town. It worked out well for them and several big Mahi Mahi were their reward for the …
Since heavy winds were predicted for Friday evening and Black Point was 50 NM from Georgetown we wanted to get at least halfway on Thursday just in case the winds filled in earlier than predicted. We had originally planned to head to Leaf Cay to check out some rock iguanas …
We spent 3 days at O'Brians Cay. Our first day we got the dingy up on desk and did some epoxying to fix up the scratches and dents from the dingy going ashore on the rocks. That ended up being a full day on the boat since we couldn't dingy …
After our traumatic night with the dingy, and the crapy nature of this mooring ball in the current, we woke up and decided to move over to an area called the aquarium to check that out. We were considering just dingying over from Cambrige, but it was time to leave …
We spent two days in Warderick Wells. Aria and Theone did some hiking on the island during the day, while I stayed on the boat to get some work done.
The next morning we sailed off the mooring ball. We were the last ones out, so there were no other …
After a long rolly night and not much sleep, we woke up slightly grump and got underway. We slipped the mooring ball and sailed out with a double reefed main in the strong winds. When we got to the deeper areas we rolled out a bit of genoa and were …
Super light wind day today, and we woke up to a very calm morning. I wanted to check out the well that was nearby, they say it was even used by pirates back in the day. I didn't realize there was any natural fresh water here, but this proves me …
We wanted to row around some of the mangroves in Shroud Cay, so we packed up some food and water, our snorkel gear, and set forth in our dingy. The entrance to the creek was near where we were moored and it was a quick row over there. The current …
Our second day in Rock Sound we woke up to a pretty wavy anchorage. We got into town for some provisions and I got a bit of extra water to top up our tanks. After that we motored over to the other side of the Sound to find a much …