Saturday, May 30, 2009

Days 154 & 155- Preparing to Sail Home

Tuesday, May 5 and Wednesday, May 6, 2009.

Tuesday was our day to provision for the last time in the Bahamas. We shopped in Marsh Harbour for power bars and other snack food that does not require any preparation. It is possible to cook underway, but ocean passages tend to be "rolly" at best, so working down below in the galley is a challenge. Also, even though Penny uses scopalamine patches for blue water sailing (ocean off-shore sailing), she doesn't like to push her luck by spending extended periods of time down in the galley. The other provision we needed was a bit of US cash. The ATM machines in Marsh Harbour give you Bahamian dollars, so we had to do some trading in town to get US cash. The Bahamians use both the dull green US cash and the bright, colorful Bahamian cash without hesitation. Somehow, we don't think businesses in the States would be willing to take our Bahamian dollars.

Weather forecasts were looking good for a sail north so we planned two daytime sails to get to the northwestern edge of the Bahamas. Then we could head out for a quick crossing over to Florida. So, on Day 155--Wednesday, May 6th-- we had a delightful northwest sail downwind to Green Turtle Cay. As you can see, we hauled out the spinnaker and had a lovely sail.




















We got to Black Sound, Green Turtle Cay at low tide Wednesday afternoon. We radioed the nice guy at Black Sound Marina who said he had a mooring for us, but advised us to wait until the tide starting rising again as the sound entrance is very shallow. We anchored outside New Plymouth Settlement and waited a couple hours. At about 5PM we motored into Black Sound and hooked up to the mooring. Then we grabbed the laptop and the headset, so we could Skype home from the beach-side bar Pineapples.















So here is Penny finishing off a very fine tropical frozen drink beside the pool at Pineapples Skyping the family. The message is a bit strange--"We are leaving to sail back to Beaufort tomorrow morning (Thursday, May 7), but we have no idea when we will arrive." There is a possibility that the weather will be good enough to stay in the Gulf Stream and sail it north to Beaufort rather than sailing west to Florida first. If we sail west to Florida, we will work our way north along the coast--St. Augustine, FL; Savannah, GA; Beaufort, SC; Charleston, SC; Wrightsville Beach, NC; and home to Beaufort. How long does that take? It took us almost a month when we were sailing south to the Bahamas in December. But the weather in December was not very travel-friendly--it was cold and the wind often blew in the wrong direction. Also, the Gulf Stream flows north, not south. So--who knows? Three weeks? Two weeks? Or, just one week?
Well, regardless of how long it will take, we need a good night's sleep for tomorrow's sail to Sale Cay and on to the northwestern edge of the Bahamas.

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