February 22nd- West End GB to Great Sale Cay, Bahamas

Still having some sleep deprivation but we are feeling good. We were up to watch the sun rise this morning. We brought Ollie to shore at the beach resort. The sand was raked with lounge chairs scattered around. We made sure Olliver left nothing but paw prints in the sand. I was able to pick up WiFi from the resort and downloaded some weather files for the next few days.

After returning to Evergreen we were thinking about moving on when the decision was made for us. Another sailboat was trying to anchor near us in the swift tidal current. The skipper was single handed and on the bow of the boat trying to set the anchor with no results. By the time he was able to raise his anchor he had drifted down on us and hit Evergreen. No damage was done and he was soon able to reanchor the vessel. We decided to move on and were off the hook within 20 minutes.

We went through Indian Rock passage and were soon sailing in the Bahamas. Today was one of the best days sailing that we’ve had in a while. Lynne bought me a book, The Sail Trim Users Guide by Don Guillette. It’s a good book and takes the guesswork out of sail trimming. I spent the day adjusting sails and trying to squeeze every extra ounce of speed out of Evergreen’s old sails.

We anchored off the coast of Great Sale Cay, near a nice beach, for the night. There were a few other boats anchored around Great Sale but none near us. Another experience in the Bahamas is the utter lack of background noise. No cars, planes, trains, or boats. Just silence and the quiet sounds of water lapping the hull.

February 23- Great Sale Cay, Bahamas

I had read about some ruins of a NASA rocket tracking site on island so that was on my mind this morning. Ollie’s morning commando raid included the search for the NASA ruins. We found them. They were very ruined. The beach was nice and lined with pine trees. We eventually moved Evergreen into a protected harbor on Great Sale called West Harbor. Again we could see other vessels anchored in the distance but enjoyed our seclusion.

February 24th- Great Sale Cay to Allans-Pensacola Cay, Abaco Islands Bahamas

Today we moved on to Allans-Pensacola Cay. Allans-Pensacola were two different islands at one time but were joined together by sand (and a hyphen) as the result of a hurricane. It’s a well protected harbor that you can get pretty far into with a shallow draft vessel. We dinghyed around and explored some of the beaches. In my life I’ve seen one sea turtle in Lake Tashmoo MV and another being released from rehabilitation on Marathon FL. Today I saw 6 more. They are surprisingly fast under water.

In the morning we had eggs and bacon. After pouring the bacon grease in the water a shark showed up and circled Evergreen. Everyone likes bacon! While there are sharks in New England, this was the first shark Lynne and I had ever seen.

Some scenes from Allans-Pensacola Cay.

Shark.

Evergreen anchored at Allans-Pensacola Cay.