January 18th- Great Abaco Island, Bahamas 

We hauled in the anchor at Lake Worth and exited the inlet around 5:00pm. We pointed Evergreen roughly south east to make some distance before the Gulf Stream would start to push us north. This put us directly into the SE wind so we motored. The Gulf Stream was choppy with around 4 to 5 foot seas. Eventually things flattened out a bit and we were able to roll the genoa out when we changed course. This stabilized Evergreen enough that the Admiral was able to cook up some chicken/ vegetable ramen soup. The moon rose and was a bright 3/4 so visibility was pretty good. We crossed onto the Bahama bank (near Memory Rock) around 2:30am. It was a good crossing and we were very pleased to be back in the Bahamas. During the calmer part of the voyage we traded off watches in the cockpit and the off watch person got some sleep. We did this every hour or two. This was a first for us and we felt much better. It took 17 hours to transit from Lake Worth to Great Sale Cay (21 hours if you count the ICW passage from Hobe Sound). 

Sunrise in the Bahamas.

Raising the quarantine flag.

As we were approaching Great Sale Cay I downloaded a weather forecast from our Garmin satellite device. Great Sale has a couple of different anchoring spots that provide good protection from various wind directions. Unfortunately, South West is not one of them. The wind was predicted to turn south west Saturday morning. These things happen. We had a brief meeting. We both felt pretty good and weren’t exhausted so we pointed Evergreen toward a safer anchorage.

Eventually, we dropped the hook in the lee of Great Abaco Island, not far from Cooperstown, around 5pm. In two days we traveled 161 nautical miles over 28 hours. Not bad for a couple of day-sailors in a 46 year old boat.

Today is cloudy, breezy, but a warm 75 degrees. Bahamas!!!