The Exumas is a chain of islands in the Bahamas – it’s about 130 miles long and consists of 360 islands or cays. Some are inhabited, some not, but ALL of them make up a giant playground for cruisers. For our two week trip, we decided to head south to Staniel Cay and island hop our way back up to Nassau. Our trip included stops at: Rose Island, Allen’s Cay, Hawksbill Cay, Staniel Cay, Compass Cay, Warderick Wells Cay and Highbourne Cay.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Exhausted and Happy
We are almost there! We talked to the boat yard management today and scheduled our haul in for early Friday afternoon. The plan is to spend the weekend tied up to the dock while we finish up projects and use the car the run any errand we can think of because the little white Acura is being shipped to California on Monday. Then on Tuesday…off we go!!!