Since our last post in Bimini we have done a ton. We left early early Tuesday morning from Bimini en route for Bird Cay. We had 90 miles to go and we weren’t gonna get much help from the wind. It was a very long uneventful sail. At the end of it we arrived at Bird Cay dropped the hook, ate some dinner, played some Phase 10, and laid down for a looong deep deep sleep.
Logan and I woke up in Bimini, The Bahamas. We did it. We got off our old friend, mooring ball O1 and headed northeast to paradise Saturday morning.
Logan and Gillian in the Cockpit
Last week we had a rap on the hull. I came out and said hello and met our new friend Josh Knox on S/V Kuhela. Josh is a young Australian guy who flew over in February to buy a boat and take it back home. He came over to us because he couldn’t believe his eyes when he entered Boot Key Harbor and saw SB’s memorable blue grey hull. He had been in contact with Baxter and Molly to buy Stella Blue at the same time we were! Josh is on a 3-5 year trip back to Australia in his Downeaster 38. This is his first boat too and we have been able to regale each other with tales (read mistakes) of our first two months of boat ownership. Hopefully we’ll run into him again some time in the future…it really is a small world as we’ve found out.
Sombrero Beach
Logan and I are sitting in the City Marina community lounge area today setting up plans for the next week or so here in Marathon. Yep, we are still on mooring ball O1 here in Boot Key Harbor. We had set our sights on wrapping up the to-do list and setting sail Saturday April 20th…until that cold front that swept through the US last week and brought some nasty squall action to the Bahamas. We decided to postpone our passage for a few days so the weather could settle down. The new plan was to set off tomorrow, April 24th…until the wind picked up and shifted around to the north creating choppy sea conditions with high swells in the Gulf Stream. The NEW plan is to leave in the next “weather window”. The good news is that everything is packed and ready to go, so when the weather decides to cooperate, we will be ready. As eager as we are to move along on our journey, we have decided to make this first big passage as smooth and safe as possible. In the mean time we plan to tackle some minor boat projects and hang out on Sombrero Beach.
Things are going great here in Boot Key Harbor. We’re just a few days away from leaving the country. Yesterday we said good bye to our first visitors, Gillian’s parents. We all had a blast. Here’s one of many highlights from their stay. More to come soon.
We left Marco Island on an eerie morning. The weather looked like it was going to make for an uneventful motorsail all the way to Little Shark River…looked like. There was some fog that morning in Factory Bay where we were anchored, but fog lifts as the sun comes up, right? The further out into the gulf we got, the thicker the fog became. Before long we could barely see 1/4 mile in front of us (or in any direction for that matter)! This was getting ridiculous – Logan was glued to the radar looking for boats and I was glued to what water I could see to look for those darn crab pots. It was exhausting but just when we thought that there was no end in sight, we started to be able to make out the horizon. Whew! Before we knew it, the wind had picked up, the sun was out, our sails were up and were were on a perfect beam reach on our way to Little Shark River to anchor for the night.
The cold is gone and the heat is on!
We ended up spending a couple extra days in Fort Meyers Beach. It’s a great little beach town. Spring Break must still be going on because the beach was packed with people. We made our way to all the local spots that were recommended to us: SOBs (Shrimp Oyster Brewery), The Cottage, and Petey’s Upper Deck at the Matanzas Inn. All of them were great. We also made it to the Friday FMB Farmers Market. Not a huge event, but some great produce at fair prices and Gillian picked up some some spicy pickles. Our last day there, we went out to the Capt Ron’s favorite Colombian place with him and Ken and Joanne from the boat yard. The five of us shared some authentic Colombian cuisine and swapped sailing stories. We said our final goodbye to Captain Ron – we will miss him a lot, but hope to meet up with him later this season in the BVIs.
Our adventure has begun.
We left Burnt Store Marina on Monday afternoon with full fuel and water tanks, an empty holding tank and highly excited sailing hearts. The winds were strong, but they were predicted to blow a beam reach for us all the way across the bay and we were excited to do some real sailing on this vessel. The first hour was fantastic – 20 knots right on our beam, sunny skies and Stella was screaming at 7 knots! We were giddy with excitement. Then in the blink of an eye, the winds started to blow maintained speeds of 30, with gusts up to 40. As much as we wanted some good wind to stretch our sailing legs, that was too much wind 🙂 Stella Blue got up to over 8 knots!! We wrestled to get down the sails and made our way into the Intercoastal Waterway (ICW) headed towards Cabbage Key. Our original plan was to anchor out across the channel from Cabbage Key, but with the strong winds we decided to take shelter in the Cabbage Key Marina. The relief that we felt after we were securely tied up to the dock was incredible. We had made it from Point A to Point B on our first solo voyage. Beer time!
We did it!!
Stella Blue now has a properly functioning, ice-cold, kick ass refrigeration system. Logan and I installed the Adler Barber CU-100 compressor unit and the VD-150 evaporator plate unit yesterday from about 1pm to 10pm. There was sweat, there was grunting, there was even a little blood. But we were successful and feel so accomplished this morning. This may change the way we provision for the Bahamas!
The weather here on the west coast of Florida is wacky today with t-storms and sustained winds of 20-25 with gusts up to 30 mph, this is enough to warrant a Lake Wind Advisory. We will be spending this Sunday working on miscellaneous boat projects and resting up for our passage tomorrow.
Remember when I said that the more we accomplish, the longer our to-do list gets? Well this has proved to be true once again here at the Burnt Store Marina.