Month: April 2019

It’s good to be back in Florida – the land of big supermarkets with lots of selection! We arrived in Cape Canaveral at 8 am on Sunday, April 14 after a difficult crossing. We had wind on the stern the whole way and the waves plus smell were intense. We did a lot of rolling and surfing down waves (in the dark) and I was very thankful to cross into the Port Canaveral inlet just to stop all the motion.

We used a new app called CBP ROAM which allows you to check into the USA without joining to a Custom and Border Patrol office. The app worked really well – we filled out an arrivals form, sent it in and then did a quick video chat. That was it – we’re now “verified travellers” which means we don’t have to do the video chat part again.

After clearing in, we made our way to Titusville Municipal Marina and rented a car to complete our clearing in process – getting our cruising licence. We’re all set now for another year. We did a bit of grocery shopping while we had the car and boy, you forget about all the selection there is when you’re in the Bahamas for any length of time. We had a blast!

We spent 2 days traveling up the intracoastal waterway and now we’re in St. Augustine. This is such a lovely town and the Municipal Marina is right in the heart of the old city. This is our 2nd time being at this marina on a mooring and we’ve enjoyed it both times. We’re very close to the Fort, which is good and bad. They do tours and re-enactments at the Fort. Part of this includes the firing of a cannon – it’s like we’re under attack everyday!! Mark was working on the engine yesterday when the cannon went off – we both got startled by that one!

Tomorrow we will continue our journey north, heading to the St. John’s River which will lead us to Jacksonville and then Reynolds Park Yacht Centre – Crimson Kathryn’s home for hurricane season. We’ll be at the marina by Tuesday afternoon and will spend about 2 weeks getting the boat ready for storage. We have a tentative haul out date on May 10. Here’s hoping all goes well in the next few weeks.

We left Marathon, Florida on Saturday, January 19 and here we are, almost 4 months later, getting ready to cross back over to Florida. We’ve had some amazing adventures in some new areas of the Bahamas.

We started our Bahamian journey in familiar territory – clearing in at Bimini, heading across the banks to New Providence and then continuing through the Exumas. We had a chance to go inside the Thunderbolt grotto at Staniel Cay which was pretty amazing and we made it to George Town in great time.

Our adventure was definitely made more exciting and satisfying when Caroline, Donalda and Bill joined us! We bought this large sailboat with the idea that we could share our travels with family and friends, so having all 3 onboard at the same time was great fun!!

We visited the far Bahamas – Conception Cay and Long Island. Both were amazing and our road trip on Long Island was definitely a highlight. We did some amazing snorkelling at Conception Cay. Of course, we enjoyed amazing food, drink and company! It was a very fast 3 weeks!

Mark and I also explored 2 other new regions of the Bahamas – Eleuthera and the Abacos. Another car rental on Eleuthera proved to be an excellent idea. We saw a large part of the island and really enjoyed a little “land” time.

So here we are, getting ready to leave our last new area – the Abacos. It’s been very interesting exploring this northern part of the Bahamas. There are some amazing places to visit and we did get a chance to stop at some of them. As far as anchorages go, there are not a lot of really good ones and we’ve found it challenging to find places that don’t require you to go into a marina. It’s definitely an area worth exploring but I think the Exumas are more our style.

Here’s our plan: we’re currently anchored at Crab Cay and will be heading to Great Sale Cay tomorrow ( Friday, April 12). We have a good weather window to cross to Florida so on Saturday, April 13, we’ll be heading to Cape Canaveral. The next blog will come from the USA!!

The northern island chain is called the Abacos and it has been described as the “Florida” of the Bahamas (because it is very American in many ways, plus it’s easy to get here from Florida and lots of boaters never leave this part of the Bahamas). Put it this way…I had Starbucks coffee in Marsh Harbour (very exciting!!).

We left Spanish Wells after a few days of rather high winds. Our crossing (about 50knots) was very interesting – little wind and big ocean swell. The captain had a rough time and had to take many motion sickness pills. We also had to motor the entire way – not much fun. But when we arrived, we found a nice anchorage beside Lynyard Cay that was very calm and pleasant. We visited a little place called Little Harbour – not much there but it was pretty and it gave us a chance to walk around.

Much like the Exumas, the distances between the Abacos islands is very small so changing anchorages only takes a few hours. We decided to jump from Lynyard all the way to Marsh Harbour! We had an excellent day of sailing to get up the chain! The wind was a good strength and we had to do a lot of trimming of the sails because it was not a straight course. Lots of swallow water that needs to be bypassed on this route.

Marsh Harbour is an interesting town that really does feel very American – it has sidewalks, parking lots and a grocery store called Maxwells that is like a small Walmart. When we arrived at the Marsh Harbour anchorage, it was packed (a cold front with north winds was heading our way so everyone was trying to anchor in a protected area) and we had to anchor very close to other boats. It was “George Town” anchoring rules!!

Definitely the highlight of Marsh Harbour has been finding this excellent coffee shop called Calypso Coffee House. They serve Starbucks coffee and have great wifi!! We’ve also enjoyed Maxwells and they have a CIBC so no extra transaction fees for using another bank’s ATM. We’ve walked around a bit and have enjoyed seeing this town.

It’s hard to believe we only have about 2 more weeks left in the Bahamas. We’ll probably be leaving Marsh Harbour in the morning (Sat., April 6), making our way north. Our last island stop will be Great Sale Cay. After that it’s a roughly 30 hour crossing to Cape Canaveral and then another 3 or 4 days up to coast to Reynold’s Park Yacht Centre. Yippy!