Is it time to cross??

We’ve been inching our way north and west over the past few days and it looks like we’ll be aiming for a good crossing window next week. It’s been a great few days – travelling with Julia and Brad (Alizarin) and Sharon and Rick (Orkan).

After a very calm Monday night anchored near the Treasure Cay airport, we moved about 6nm north to the top end of Manjack Cay on Tuesday morning. We’d been told that there was good snorkeling on the ocean side of this cay but you need settled weather for that. Well we were lucky to have that kind of weather so we anchored and went exploring. There were several reefs in the area with lots of fish but the coral wasn’t very healthy. Lots of sand covering the coral heads but the fan coral was coming back.

When we returned to the north Manjack anchorage, Alizarin had joined us! We both pulled up anchor and moved along – we went to Powell Cay while Alizarin went to the west side of the Sea of Abaco to find a good anchorage for the night (we were expecting west wind overnight). Powell Cay was a good spot with lots of beautiful sand. We only spent about an hour there, exploring by dinghy but will definitely go back sometime to explore the island itself.

We left Powell and headed across to Coopers Town (on Great Abaco Island) to join Alizarin and Orkan. It was another calm anchorage and we enjoyed a 3rd happy hour on our boat this time. It’s been great fun getting to know these fellow cruisers and to learn from their experiences. We also spent a bit of time planning where to go next!! The wind has picked up over the past few days and it’s expected to get windier so we were looking for a good place to ride it out!

Wednesday morning all 3 boats headed farther north to Crab Cay. This spot offered us good protection for the north east/ east wind that we’re starting to experience now! We had a nice happy hour on the beach last night with all 3 couples – our last because Orkan took off this morning to head to West End. They plan to cross to Florida on Monday.

So we’re still anchored at Crab Cay with Alizarin. We’ll do a dinghy ride this afternoon and relax until Saturday. It looks like we’ll be heading to Great Sale Cay on Saturday and then to West End maybe on Sunday. After that we’ll watch the weather – could be a good crossing on Tuesday or Wednesday! We’ll just wait and see!!