We've come to the turning point

Our original plans for this season were to cross over to the Bahamas in late February after spending the worst part of the winter in Marathon. Then cruising here until May before heading back to the US to get there by June. Well, so much for planning because matters look like we need to get close to home for a while. With the news about my brother-in-law and apparent declines in Linda's father we want to get back early so we can hopefully spend quality time in the remaining days.

A Captain Ron looking boat in the marina for something. Quite a lot of growth on the hull. If you look at the palm trees you'll see the type of breeze we had this week.

So, tomorrow, Saturday of Easter weekend we are going to leave the comfort of Emerald Bay and resume our cruising but in a northerly direction. We plan to leave early to head northeast to Cat Island, one of the out islands of the Bahamas.

We made it back from our rush trip to Pennsylvania and have spent the past few days getting ready for the next cruise.  When we got back we were pleasantly surprised that our batteries were in great shape from the abundence of sun and now the strong wind. As the sun moves further north with the change of seasons hopefully we will enjoy greater power from our solar bank.

Two major concerns as we prepare for our future cruising are power and communications. With more constant trade winds and closer proximity to the sun our power generation should increase. But I'm concerned it won't be enough so I'm thinking of replacing our 130W panel on the hard top with 2 160W panels. We currently have 480W of solar and this would give us a 30% increase in solar capability. That should meet what I see as a current deficit.

Our comms issue just got a huge leg up this week as we bought and received an Iridium Go and have worked to use it. The Iridium Go is a satellite telephone based router that allows use of cellphones, laptops and tablets through a satellite connection for voice, text, email, SOS and limited internet. The router can handle up to 5 devices and works through the Iridium network of low earth orbit (LEO) satellites so we can communicate rom virtually anywhere in the world. We currently have voice, text, SOS, email and weather working well. We just need to resolve how to use the limited internet functions. It certainly isn't broadband but being able to call, text, email or post to Facebook hundreds or thousands of miles offshore is great!   

Our Iridium Go system provider and programs

So besides our work since we got back we enjoyed meeting lots of new folks around the marina and traveled to Bahama Customs. The weather has been windy and cool so we haven't been swimming but hopefully when we get to Cat we will be able to get back in the water.

So from here we turn back north but not in a hurry.

Interesting clouds tonight with tropical moisture headed north.

The marina office at twilight.