Green Turtle Cay

What a gorgeous island! It is one of the first settlements in the Abacos (northern Bahamas)...The views throughout the island are incredible. The homes are pastel colors. There are lots of really green plants, trees, palm trees, hibiscus and orchids. Each time you can get a glimmer of the Atlantic side, you see a green/blue water that is hard to describ. You take your sunglasses off and the colors are still amazing. We ventured into New Plymouth to see the town. There are about 500 full time residents. The town is a mix of yelow, pink and lite blue buildings. They have wrapped the telephone poles with Xmas decorations. This year is the first time they have been able to do that. They pulled together a committee to raise the funds. We had a goombay smash at Miss Emily's....It is always a stop on the walk thru New Plymouth. Miss Emily's daughter now runs the place. She is known for her version of the goombay smash...needless to say it only takes about two to feel the effects. The sunsets here ahve been beautiful....see pics of the island.

My Lucky Stars

They say cruising is repairing your boat in exotic places. The romance of fixing a macerator pump in a gorgeous anchorage like Great Sale Cay is not as glamourous as you may think. After 10 hours of motoring and then 3 1/2 hours it was fixed. That was at 9:15 at nite...but with crusing there is always give and take. John worked really hard to get it working. Our payback was at midnite when the meteor shower began. Imagine being in an anchorage where the seas were flat calm, not a cloud in the sky and you get to so many stars, that they are at the horizon. We saw 40 shooting stars. They were so bright that some them had a trail...AWESOME! We also had a star shine so bright that it shimmered on the water...Good stuff! Now we are anchored in Green Turtle Cay...we did talk to our dear friends on Seafox because they were lurking on the VHF radio...They are on Treasure Cay about 15 miles from here...We will see them when they get back from a snowy visit with their family in Rhode Island....

Total Relaxation

We are all here in West End, Grand Bahama Island. Blue Blaze and Far Point have arrived and all is well. The other sailboats have been wonderful...lots to talk about, happy hours and time to just shoot the ____....We are waiting for good weather to continue on...Looks like everyone will leave tomorrow morning: 5 sailboats and a Nordic Tug. We will travel with Far Point and Blue Blaze to our first anchorage...about 58 miles away (Great Sale Cay). Then onto Green Turtle Cay another 50 plus miles away. The grounds at the Marina/Resort are gorgeous. The current owner demolished all the old buildings and built new. The style is Bahamian expensive. The actual rooms go for 300-700 dollars a nite. They have a infinity pool, lounge chairs on the beach, pool table, fitness center....A lot of money was spent to create this place. The boats that come in here are HUGE...sport fishing boats and pleasure yachts. I took a pic of one...Lots of money. WE have been eating lobster with mustard sauce, lobster with rice, lobster tacos and lobster with pasta. At $5 a piece, it is a bargain. Each day a male bahamaian lobster diver comes and shows his lobsters and we would hate to refuse them. The lobsters have no claws but a huge tail. Great eatin'. Laura and I went to town on the resorts' beach bikes and visited the local liquor store in search of our favorite french table wine...Lamouthe Parrot, available only in the Bahamas. Upon leaving the liquor store I found my bike had a flat tire. We rode a short distance and a local said he could pump the tire back up...We were set to go again and 5 mintes later the flat reappeared...We started walking back to the resort when a resort SUV stopped to help us...Colby, like the cheese took good care of us and drove us back to the marina. The people here are really friendly... The skies here are just gorgeous. There is usually some billowy white clouds with a gorgeous blue sky background. See pics....

We Made It To The Bahamas!

Wow! What a crossing...We left at 8pm Monday nite with Blue Blaze and 3 other sailboats. At first we were motoring a little close to each other but we spread out for comfort...For some of the sailboats it was their first crossing. Unfortunately about an hour into the crossing, Blue Blaze had alternator trouble and smoke coming out from melted wires....They turned back and we asked if they were sure they could return safely...They indeed said they could...We continued on and the weather was right on our bow...18-22 knots of wind and about 6 foot seas...not the crossing we had intended but the moon came and lit up the sky....I saw a shooting star..pretty cool. We arrived 13 hours later, 3 sailboats later...the sun came out and all is good! We cleaned the boat and started to relax...sit at the pool...Pretty swanky place (my description not theirs)...see OLd Bahama Bay REsort and Marina website. Quite an indulgence...During the afternoon, 2 guys in a small boat came to greet us, selling conch and lobster..the lobster in the Bahamas has no claws but a huge tail. We bought 2 for $5 each...proceeded to boil them and eat them just as fast as we could. I cut up the conch and made conch salad...Yum! Blue Blaze has fixed their problems and will tentatively arrive Thursday morning at about 4am...Yeah! See pics of the conch on Kino's boat...

Time To Give A Hug To Those You Love

One of the best things about cruising is the wonderful people you met. The most fascinating thing about meeting new people is that you become quite close in a very short time...Unlike the land version, your new neighbors are there to help through thick and thin. We met an amazing couple from Alaska, that had brought their dog, Buoy. Buoy was a golden retreiver/poodle mix. One of those newfangled cross breeds. Buoy happened to be a very special and loving dog. After meeting them in Beaufort, NC and then in Charleston,Sc and then Jacksonville,Fl and now we are finally together in Lake Worth,Fl...We realized that Bouy was just one of the sweetest dogs...big, white curly fur and the spirit of a puppy dog (only 2 years old)...This morning, a devastating thing happened to Buoy and he is no longer with us....Life is always a reminder to hug those we love each day...remind ourselves that all is good in the world...

The Passage To West Palm

We left on Saturday morning from the St. John's River (Jacksonville, Florida) to go on a 2 nite passage to West Palm (about 240 miles)....along with our buddy boat, Blue Blaze. The wind was anywhere from 0 to 12 knots, the moon was full and the skies were clear. The most gorgeous sunsets and sunrises, shooting stars and lots of dolphins. The dolphins are atracted to your boat like a magnet, they love to cruise in your bow wake. We even saw some at nite through the water because the moon was so bright (like who turned the lites on)...amazing.John and I traded watches, about 3 hors on 3 hours off. You spend countless hours just gazing off onto the horizon to check for other boats...You can see entrance channel lights that from afar seem to take on other shapes until you are within a few miles of them. This passage was just perfect...We had to even slow the boat down to 4.4 knots to arrive during the morning hours into the West Palm entrance. Attached you will see a dolphin picture (not great) from alongside the boat and a pic of West Palm...