4/24/19

The colors of the waters in the Bahamas are so vibrant!  Here’s a picture taken on Man-O-War Cay in the Bahamas, Jerry and Jerry looking out to sea.

Man-O-War is yet another picture perfect Bahamian settlement.  

 

This is the street we walked down to arrive at the beach.  You can see the brilliant water in the distance.

The streets are just the right width for the main mode of transportation – golf carts!

Another stop in the Abacos was a place called Buckaneer Bay.  This is an area where we took the dinghy into a series of cuts between rocks and mangroves at high tide.   So many sea turtles!  We also found what is referred to as a blue hole.  We noticed an area where the water was dark blue and went to check it out.  The water goes from 3 feet to really deep!  It’s like looking into a cave underwater.

Exploring the mangrove creeks at Buckaneer Bay at high tide.

We saw one of the biggest sea turtles we’ve ever seen!  Maybe 6 feet long!  I have a link for a video to see the sea turtle here:  https://youtu.be/arzto5ev9ro

Marsh Harbor is the settlement we stop at to buy groceries.  The harbor is always full of boats anchored, ferries coming in and out, and it is shallow.  Moorings, the charter company, has a fleet of boats at Marsh Harbor if you’d like to rent a sailboat and sail the Abacos.  We’ve been sailing everywhere –that means hauling the sail up before hauling anchor, sailing to a destination, and anchoring, all without starting the motor.  Here’s what our path looked like as we tacked back and forth on the mainsail into Marsh Harbor between all of the anchored boats to the sound of applause from a few admirers.  No one sails into Marsh Harbor!

This is our GPS screen.  The black and white line is our path to where we anchored.

It’s always sad to leave the beautiful water, people, and places in the Bahamas when we head north.  Oh yeah, we hate the leave the tropical weather too!  

Here’s a link for a video of dolphins swimming off the bow as we sail on the banks in the Abacos:  https://youtu.be/GO-Yqo7eb6U

But we have a graduation and a wedding to attend at beginning of June so we sailed back to the states in two hops with Donna and Jerry on Bluejacket.  The first was from Double-Breasted Cay in the northernmost Abacos to Fernandina Beach, FL.  A northeast wind going to south was perfect for the 48 hour sail.  We felt like we were in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie when we spotted this off in the distance…..

A tall ship flying 18 sails!  But no Jolly Roger flying.   It turned out to be a Spanish Navy training ship I believe.  We heard them on the VHF radio.  Do you recognize the ship?  Donna and Jerry also heard the Swedish Navy on a tall ship training vessel out on the ocean that night.

We stayed at Fernandina Beach, FL long enough to check in with customs & immigration, have some lunch and ice cream ashore with Donna and Jerry of Bluejacket, visit with friends Chris, Amy, and Andrew, and ride out the cold front that came through.  52 knots of wind was the peak as it came through with heavy rain and tornado watches.  It made for a choppy anchorage when the wind opposed the current.   

The next morning, Saturday, we were off again for our second hop to Beaufort, NC.  We left the anchorage with very little wind.  That didn’t last long!  As forecast we enjoyed 30 knots of SW and W wind breezing up the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina.  That made for a fast passage and semi-comfortable as the large waves were behind us pushing us along.  We had a warbler land in the cockpit and stay aboard for a while.  Entertaining!  

Here is a video of the bird on the steering wheel.  The autopilot is hard at work as you can see:  https://youtu.be/R-rNmgmf1wg

Here's a video Jerry took on this passage:  https://youtu.be/yU_ExbnuDwo

As we approached the Beaufort Inlet the winds dropped down to 10 knots.  Just over 48 hours from Fernandina.

A Coast Guard ship was in the channel working on the markers.

We are currently tied to the town dock in Oriental, NC.  See if you can find us on the towndock.net harbor cam today (we’ll be leaving tomorrow - Thursday).  We’re all the way to left near a big red shrimp boat.

That’s all for now!  We’ll be heading to Donna and Jerry's place about 10 miles from here, then to Norfolk via the intracoastal waterway, on to the ocean back to NY to see Marianne at Sandy Hook, and then up the Hudson River and Erie Canal.  Keep in touch!

Karen and Jerry