Home is where our boat is

What an enjoyable night our last night in the Bahamas turned out to be. We got into Grand Cay and was able to tie up to Rosie’s Marina. The marina was not fancy but in better condition than many other places we’ve seen. It was part of a little enterprise that included guest cottages, a restaurant, liquor store and the government dock.

We had the lobster dinner with a couple of cold Sands beers to celebrate our last night in the islands. Price was reasonable compared to most of what we saw on the other islands.

Then this morning we began our trip after waiting for low tide to pass. The harbor channel and area around the dock was shallow so we wanted to be sure if we got stuck the tide was going the right way. But, we made it out successfully after sliding across the sand coming out of the dock and once clear of the shoals got our sails out and had a nice sail until we needed to turn west. The wind was east-southeast so it was dead behind us. We could have gone out a thorny pass to the ocean but opted 

(our last view of the Bahamas)

to stay on the Bank for comfort and to get as far west as quickly as possible to pick up the Gulf Stream. So to sail the course we raised the spinnaker and sailed. We sailed the entire way off the Bank but the wind was waning and night was coming so we didn’t want to fly the Spinnaker at night 

so we opted to motor sail and hopefully when we turn north in the Gulf Stream the wind will be on our beam and we can sail from there.

As we got away from the Bahama Bank the swells built to at least 3-5' and wind continued from behind and we were running at 9-9.5 kts toward the stream. We had waypoints in the stream and when we got close to that lay line we turned to get out of the way of the Disney Dreams cruise ship coming at us. After we turned I pulled out the jib and cut the engine and we were flying. We were rocking along over 10 kts and hit 11-11.5 kts at times. But it didn't last. The wind quieted down and got right behind us and eventually the rocking overcame the power of the sails so we had to go back to power. We continued running at 9-10 kts all night and came out of the stream about 0800 but with the strong swells behind us we continued running between 8-9 kts all the way up the coast to St Augustine.

During early Monday evening several squalls appeared around us but none came close. As night fell we saw lightning in the sky off in the distance but nothing close. When the moon finally rose the sky and sea were beautiful with the phosphorescence lighting up in our bow wave and in our wake animating the water along our track.

Monday morning the wind died but with the swell we continued running quickly. At one point 3 spotted dolphins were swimming under our bow. We went up to the bowsprit and watched them swim to keep up and dive under the bow surfacing frequently for air and even jumping over the wake. The only distance between us was the boat free board. They swam with us for close to 5 mins and were quite an enjoyable amusement.

When we got to the St Augustine sea buoy and turned toward the channel the sky started to darken and show signs of an impending squall. We kept a weather eye on it but were really focused on finding the channel. We've come in this inlet in the dark 2x but never in daylight. We've come out but we just followed our track. The marks area all floating marks because they are moved frequently as the shoals shift. We never saw any water less than 15' of water and  eventually found all the marks and worked our way in against the out coming tide, the now gusting wind and the northbound swells against the tide.  Eventually we got behind the shore and the swells abated but the wind built and once inside the pass the current lessened and we got up to the Bridge of Lions and onto our mooring about 1930 and settled down to dinner and to bed.

Our home is now in St Augustine for the next few days. In the army we used to say that our home is where our hat is. Now, home is where our boat is and it is no longer in the Bahamas but back in Florida,