Crimson Kathryn and her crew

I couldn’t resist doing one final post about our last day in the Bahamas for the 2024 season. We spent the morning getting ready for our crossing. I made spaghetti for Tuesday night’s dinner (which turned out to be tonight’s dinner as well) and Mark did some engine and fuel checks. We secured items inside the boat and on deck.

We decided to do a walk on the west side of Ginn Sur Mer (Grand Bahama Island). There’s a nice beach so we walked along it and came back through the abandoned development. It’s crazy to see how much was done before the project stopped. There are a few homes left to rot, concrete roads and interlocking brick sidewalks. You can see light posts, speed signs and even a few fire hydrants. It would be a great location for a zombie movie!!

So our dinghy is secured at the back. The table is down and set up to be our sleep area for the overnight part of our passage. We’re all ready to go!! It will be an early morning – getting up at 3 am and a long 30 + hours but by Wednesday evening, we’ll be popping our last bottle of bubbly!!

We’ve had a perfect few days at Ginn Sur Mer waiting for our weather wind to cross back to Florida. The weather has been cooler than Turks and Caicos, especially at night which has been a very welcome change.

After travelling for so many days and being very busy with company onboard, it’s been a bit weird (and quiet) relaxing in our little hidey hole. Ginn Sur Mer is a very protected area – you feel the wind but there’s no waves so the boat is nice and calm. When we first arrived, there were 7 boats (including us) in the anchorage – 4 of the 7 were Canadian boats. We had a happy hour onboard our boat the second night here with 2 French Canadian boats. One couple had just arrived from Florida and the other couple were heading back. It was fun to hear their stories.

On Friday I did some laundry while Mark spent some time working on the fuel system for the engine. After a few experiments, Mark has pretty much determined it the fuel lift pump that’s not working properly. Unfortunately the 2 spares we have onboard are old and don’t work any better than the one that currently installed. Mark has now order 2 replacements – one being delivered to Reynolds Park and the other being delivered to St. Augustine Municipal Marina (our first stop when we cross back). For now we’ll just keep using the fuel transfer pump to help with fuel pressure and hopefully sail most of the way back to the USA.

Friday night we had a second happy hour with a couple from Nova Scotia, Cathy and Joe. They are sailing on a 38ft Island Packet named Lady Seagull and they met our friends Julia and Brad (Alizarin) in Hope Town just a few weeks ago. We had a great visit hearing about their experiences. They bought their sailboat in Europe and Joe (with help) sailed it to Grenada in 2023. Cathy and Joe spent a few months touring the southern Caribbean and then Joe, again with help from friends, spent the past 6 months (or so) bringing the boat north. Cathy joined Joe at Turks and Caicos. We picked their brains about travelling in the Caribbean and got some good info!

We finally got off the boat on Saturday and went for a walk to the little town that’s on the east side of Grand Bahama Island. It’s a nice town called West End Settlement – less touristy than some of the other places plus it was the weekend, so more people were out and about. After returning from our walk, we went over to Lady Seagull for a wonderful happy hour!! We had given Joe and Cathy some of the fish we caught and Joe made a very tasty curry dish with the tuna!

So we have one more day in Ginn Sur Mer to relax and get ready for our crossing. The plan is to leave here at 4am on Tuesday, April 9th and sail the roughly 240nm to St. Augustine, arriving there around 2pm (or earlier). We’ve reserved a mooring ball at the municipal marina and will most likely leave there on April 12th. If all goes as planned, we’ll be back at Reynolds on April 13. 🤞🤞

4 days and 4 hours sailing 480nm (roughly 890km) with one 16 hour stop – we’ve made it to Ginn Sur Mer, Grand Bahamas and are waiting for a weather window to cross back to Florida. Lots has happened in the last 4 days, starting with the departure of Evelyn, Caroline and Samantha.

Like a lot of our plans this season, they changed as the time grew closer. We were to leave Blue Haven Marina on March 28th, anchor nearby so we could clear out on the 29th, and then leave around 6 am on March 30. Well in the afternoon of March 27th, a sailboat came into the dock beside us and they had sustained some damage along their trip. After a brief conversation, we discovered they had entered the Leeward Cut (the only way in and out of Blue Haven) with a north wind and swell. They got hit by a wave as they entered the channel and lost their solar panels on top of their dinghy davits. They had damage to the davits themselves and the lines holding their dinghy snapped. They also had a porthole open so took on salt water. There is a warning about the Leeward Cut – it’s dangerous with north or west wind or swell.

This story scared us – we were planning to exit that cut early March 30 with a northeast wind! We quickly changed our minds! We decided to check out of the marina and clear out of Turks & Caicos at the same time on March 28th. We then left the marina to head back to the south side of Provo so we could leave from there on Saturday, March 30. It’s a good thing we made this change. Leaving on March 28th around lunch we still encountered leftover swell from the day before. We got hit by one large wave just at the end of the channel! It was exciting for a few moments as we went up the wave about 8ft and then came crashing down!

Clearing out of T&C on March 28th and then not leaving until March 30 put us in a difficult situation. After clearing out officially, you are supposed to leave the country within 24 hours. We were going to be over that by almost a day. We joked as we motored to the south side of Provo that we’d just tell them we were having engine issues and that delayed our departure. Well we jinxed ourselves!!! We were about 3 nm from Pirates Cove (our anchorage for the night) when the engine slowly stopped running (like it had run out of gas). We’ve had issues like this in the past (trip to Bermuda comes to mind!) so Mark quickly got us up and running again so we could anchor. March 29th was spent with Mark deep into the fuelling system of the engine. First thought was that the fuel pump wasn’t working (fuel pressure was quite low). After replacing it with a newer pump (not brand new), it still didn’t work properly. Mark tried everything he could but still the fuel pressure was low. No worries – we are a sailboat after all so we can sail and the engine was still running just maybe not as reliably as we would have liked. We decided to continue with our plan to head out at 6am Saturday March 30th to Cat Island, Bahamas.

We left Saturday morning pretty much on time and the first part of our sail was a bit wild. Lots of wind and good sized waves moved us along quickly in the first 18 hours or so. The first night saw us around Acklins Island but the wind was decreasing so we had to motor sail for several hours. That was a bit stressful, not knowing if the engine would quit but it didn’t and we kept up our speed with the combination of motor and sail.

By the time we were closing in on Rum Cay, it was early Sunday morning and we were feeling really good. We had wind behind us for the most part and easy seas so we decided to not stop at Cat Island and just keep going north to the Exumas. We picked Highbourne Cay as our new destination with the possibility of stopping at other places in the Exumas if we got tired or conditioned changed. Our eta for Highbourne was around 10am on Monday, April 1.

The wind decreased again overnight (early hours of April 1st) so we motor sailed into the cut at Highbourne Cay and were on the Exuma Banks by mid morning. Things were going so well, we decided to just keep going up to Nassau. Easy motorsail got us all the way in to the north east side of New Providence by 4 pm Monday. We had done a total of 340nm in 58 hours!! Crazy! But we didn’t stop there!

After a 16 hour rest, we pulled up anchor on Tuesday, April 2 at 10am and continued north for another overnight sail to Ginn Sur Mer (our first anchorage for this season way back in January). The first part of the 140nm trip was great – sailed downwind with the spinnaker. Mark caught 2 fish – a skipjack tuna and a Spanish mackerel (we had an amazing dinner that night) and we saw lots of boat traffic (such a switch from the rather empty Providenciales). As night rolled around, we took down the spinnaker and sailed on with the jib and main sails. We were expecting high winds by morning and the wind delivered (boy did it deliver). We had a lot of wind and made up lost time from the lower winds early in the night. With strong south wind and waves behind us, we came charging into the Ginn Sur Mer inlet at 10am. Anchor was down by 11 am!! What a ride!! 4 days, 4 hours, 480nm!

Evelyn, Caroline and Samantha flew home today after a very short but amazing 1 week vacation with us on Crimson Kathryn. The rest of our week together was spent at the pool and doing some snorkeling. I think we all got lots of reading done as we relaxed in the lounge chairs either on the beach or by the pool.

On Monday, March 25th, we put the dinghy back in the water and headed out to the north side reefs. Mark and Bill had snorkelled this area the week before so we knew it was good. With 5 people in the dinghy, it was a bit of a wet ride – lots of water over the bow. It didn’t take long to get out to a good spot and we all went into the water to check out the reef. There were many different types of fish in a variety of colours, shapes and sizes. Unfortunately the coral in this area was not very healthy but we did see a few new types of coral that we haven’t seen in the Bahamas.

On their last day (March 26), the 3 ladies decided to do the bird reserve hike that we had done with Donalda and Bill. Mark took them by dinghy part of the way so they didn’t have to walk quite as far as we did. It was another hot day but they were well prepared with sunscreen and water. We gave them Mark’s phone (which has a Turks & Caicos phone number with data) so they could contact us when they were ready to be picked up. Unfortunately, we forgot to give them the password for the phone, so they ended up walking back to the resort. They headed straight for the pool to cool down from their walk!! That night we had a wonderful meal and made our plans for their departure in the morning.

We decided to rent another car to take the ladies to the airport. The car arrived at 10am today (March 27th) and we were at the airport before 10:30am – plenty of time for the 1pm flight. It was super sad to see them go – we had such an awesome visit!!

Now it’s time to start making our way back to Reynolds Park. We took advantage of having the car today and did some laundry and a last food shopping. Tomorrow (March 28) we will check out of the marina and go back to where we were anchored before we came in. On Friday, Mark will dinghy back to the marina to officially clear out of Turks & Caicos and early Saturday morning, we’ll pull up anchor and head north! The plan is to sail all the way to Cat Island – 240nm and then clear back in to the Bahamas probably on Monday morning at the airport on Cat Island. This trip back to the USA will be a quick one because our Bahamian cruising permit expires on April 13. As usual, our wifi will be limited to non existent until we are back in cell tower range in the Bahamas.

Our wonderful marina vacation continued this week as Evelyn and Caroline arrived on March 20th. Their plane arrived a bit late (all that Toronto snow slowed their departure) but we quickly got into island time by having a late lunch at a great restaurant called Mango Reef. We took advantage of the last day of the rental car and filled our trunk with some wine and lots of groceries for the week. We made our way back to the boat and the girls were thoroughly impressed by the resort and marina. After a little pool time, we had low key dinner and went to bed early (those 5 am airport runs really take it out of you).

The next day, March 21, was a partially sunny day with a few sprinkles over the course of the day. The unpredictable weather didn’t deter us from our pool and beach time. We swam a bit, read a bit and relaxed a whole bunch. We ended our first full day together with a wonderful sip poolside.

On Friday, March 22, Samantha flew in to spend 5 days with us. Samantha is a university friend of Caroline’s but she has become great friends with Evelyn too. Although Sam was quite tired she still explored a bit of the resort and enjoyed Mark’s amazing rib dinner. We ended the night with some good tunes and great conversation.

Saturday was our shopping day. We took the 10:40am shuttle to Blue Haven’s sister resort so we could visit the Salt Mills shopping area. We got lucky this time because a couple asked to be dropped off just before the shopping area so we got off at the same time – didn’t have to walk back from the resort. We had lots of fun looking through the shops (a second time for Mark and I but still interesting) and all the ladies bought some nice items. We had lunch right beside the shopping area and then walked back to the sister resort to catch the shuttle back to Blue Haven. The sister resort called The Alexandra, is much larger than Blue Haven and is situated with a lot of other resorts. It has more restaurants, 2 pools and a much larger beach area but Blue Haven seems nicer (and has the marina!!).

We still have 3 more days to explore the area. We’re planning a dinghy ride through the canals behind the resort. We’re also hoping to get out to the north side of the island to snorkel the reef. If the prediction holds, Tuesday will be a good day for that adventure.

As a little treat to ourselves and our guests, we decided to book a slip in a very swanky marina called Blue Haven Resort and Marina. It’s located in the north east side of Providenciales. We had originally booked our two week stay for March 17 – 31 but because we were so early in getting to the area, we decided to modify our dates and go in 2 days earlier. We headed into the marina on Friday, March 15. It was the best idea ever!!

Before our decadent marina stay, we moved from our first anchorage between Mangrove and Donna Cay on March 12 because it was crazy busy with tour boat traffic. We had a rocky breakfast that morning as the wakeboarding powerboats cruised by us. We figured it should be calmer right near the marina so we pulled up anchor and moved. It turned out to be a very good spot – we could watch all the tour boat action but weren’t bothered (too much) by wakes.

The next day, March 13, we decided to go for a big walk to a bird sanctuary nearby. We took the dinghy over to Blue Haven and asked to tie up at one of their docks. The marina has 24 hour security and the gate into the docks can only be opened by the guard on duty. The guard gave us permission to tie up to the main dock and we told him we’d be back in a few hours. It was a very hot, sunny day and the 6-7km walk tired us out. We were really looking forward to heading back to the boat and maybe going for a swim. The guard opened the gate for us and as we approached the dinghy we could see that it had been booted!! Our dinghy was locked to the dock!! We were so confused. Mark headed up to the office and after a discussion (which included security video footage of the true offending dinghy – not us but another guy who had abused docking privileges the day before), the head of security realized they’d made a mistake and let us go! We had a good laugh about it during happy hour that night.

Friday, March 15 was a super windy day – over 20knots of wind. We were assigned a slip on the outside of the marina and with the strong southerly wind, Mark moved us into the slip smoothly. This marina is very new and they have a wonderful cleat system. All the very large dock cleats (what your dock lines tie up to) are in a slot rail. After temporarily securing your boat, the dock hands get an impact drill, unscrew the bolts and move the cleats to the perfect position to properly secure your boat. It’s very slick! By lunch we were all tied up and relaxing at the dock.

As the name says – Blue Haven is a resort and marina. We have access to all of the resort stuff – the beach and more importantly, the pool!! There are also bars and restaurants which we can visit. The resort is all-inclusive but because we’re at the marina (not the resort), we have to pay for our drinks and meals. It’s still very nice to have access to all the resort amenities. It became our late afternoon event to go to the pool and then get a drink. We called it a dip and sip!

We also took advantage of the free shuttle that takes you to Blue Haven’s sister resort which is within walking distance to shops and more restaurants. We had a fun day looking around the shops and the other resort. We also decided to rent a car for 3 days so we could explore the whole island and go out for dinner at a restaurant in town.

All in all we had a fabulous time with Donalda and Bill. We managed to see lots of Providenciales, get some good walks in and finish lots of wine and at least one full bottle of rum! We took the Stevens to the airport this morning. We did laundry and have cleaned the boat up for our next visitors – Evelyn, Caroline and their friend, Samantha. Super excited to have them onboard!!

Donalda and Bill arrived on March 7th and we rented a car to meet them at the airport. It was an easy pickup and we were back at the boat having lunch by 1pm. After spending some money on the island buying enough groceries for the next 2 weeks, we ventured out to The Bight area for their Thursday night fish fry. It was a very busy spot and we enjoyed some yummy local food!

We left South Side marina around 8:30am on March 8th and headed to West Caicos. It was a perfect wind morning and we hoisted our spinnaker for the first time this season! What a glorious sail we had for the 12 nm trip to the north anchorage at West Caicos. This area, known as Brenard Bay, is quite shallow and you need to keep an eye out for coral heads as you enter. We spent a very interesting 2 nights here. We walked the beach and took a long dinghy ride down the west side of West Caicos. There’s lots of diving in this area and mooring balls (for the commercial dive boats) are positioned all along the coast. We did a bit of snorkeling in one area – saw lots of fish and a ray but the coral wasn’t very healthy.

Our first night in this anchorage was calm and quiet until something very strange happened. It was dark; Mark was at the bbq, Bill was on the bow and Donalda and I were in the cockpit. We could hear this loud noise like an airplane flying low. Bill is the first to notice the boat navigational lights coming straight for us. Okay the noise isn’t a plane – it’s a boat speeding directly at us! We had lots of lights on – cockpit lights, interior lights but I ran down and turned on the anchor light (which I’d forgotten to do earlier) to make us even more visible. At the last moment (or at least that’s the way it felt), the big powerboat changed course and slowed to within about 30 – 40 ft of our boat. This all white boat with no markings (no name or any way to identify it) started at our bow, turned along side of us and gave us a really good look before it sped off towards West Caicos. It was super creepy and we speculated all night about this suspicious and scary boat – were they military on patrol or drug runners!! In the morning (Sat. March 9), we found the boat tied up in the basin of the abandoned marina on the northwest side of West Caicos. We decided not to approach them although we were super curious!

On Sunday morning (March 10) we decided to move slightly further north to the anchorage Mark and I had hung out in while waiting for Donalda and Bill to arrive – near Wiley Point. We had another great sail for the short 7nm trip and anchored very close to our previous spot. We did a nice dinghy ride to the south end of this bay and visited the Pirate Cave. That night after a quick wifi session, I found out that the wind was changing to north on Tuesday. We were planning to stay near Wiley Point for a few days and then head to the north east end of Providenciales but it’s not recommended to enter the Leeward Cut (or any north shore cut) with north or west winds so we pulled up anchor by 8am on March 11 and motored the 30nm around Providenciales. It was a crazy calm day and the ocean was smooth with long, low rolling waves! It was a wonderful trip around! All was going so well – we had a following current and we were able to motor in the low 7knots most of the way. We were ahead of schedule and just about to enter the narrow Leeward Canal (that has reefs on both sides and a fair bit of shoaling in spots) when the engine broke a fan belt and started immediately to overheat. Of course this couldn’t have happened when we were all alone on the ocean – Nope! It waited until we were entering the channel while 2 sailboats were coming out!! We did a quick turn away from the channel entrance, dropped anchor and shut off the engine. I radioed the outgoing sailboats to advise them of our situation and they manoeuvred around us. Mark quickly got us up and running again and we did the last 1.5nm to our anchorage without incident. We stopped just north of Blue Haven Marina between 2 islands – Mangrove Cay and Donna Cay. We’ve gone all the way around Providenciales in the first 5 days of Donalda and Bill’s visit.

It’s been quite awhile since my last post – darn limited wifi!! We only have a phone plan with 8 G of data so we have to be very careful to make sure it lasts the whole month.

We’ve had a very interesting start to our exploration of Providenciales. We’ve discovered a few things already and the biggest discovery is that Turks and Caicos is not a cruising destination. It’s definitely beautiful and has some awesome beaches with nice blue water, but it’s very shallow and only has a very limited number of protected anchorages.

We left South Side at high tide on Feb. 24 which made our exit significantly easier than our arrival. Our first stop was at Taylor Bay – a somewhat sheltered bay about 5 nm west of South Side Marina. This bay is right beside another popular anchorage called Sapodilla Bay. Both these anchorages are close to the government dock (the main commercial dock for Providenciales) and are very populated with villas, resorts and restaurants. It’s definitely very picturesque but also very touristy. It’s not the usual place we would anchor. We did dinghy to the beach and walked the length of it – quite nice. We also took a dinghy tour around the area and found some very interesting rock formations.

As the wind started to turn more east and south east, Taylor Bay became quite bouncy and rough so we decided to move to the west side of Providenciales for better protection. We left Taylor Bay at about 10 am on Feb. 28th. It was a very short distance (5nm) but because the Caicos Banks are so shallow, you can only get into some of these anchorages with high tide. We carefully made our way to an anchorage just south of Wiley Point and found a nice spot to anchor in about 9ft of water.

What a difference 5nm can make!!! We went from a rather touristy, congested area to a nature reserve where we were all by ourselves. We had several, long white beaches and some inland salt lakes to explore. The weather was perfect – sunny, hot and a good wind blowing to keep the boat cool. We spent a bit of time walking the beaches and one day we dinghied into the one salt lakes. We saw a couple of turtles and lots of mangroves. It was a fairly large lake but too shallow for our dinghy to go very far in.

We took advantage of our downtime to clean up the boat. We spent time cleaning and polishing all the stainless parts of the deck and the isinglass – the plastic window part of the cockpit enclosure. Mark worked on jobs that have been on the list for several years. We did an inventory of our pantry items and reorganized that area. We cleaned up the V-berth to make room for Donalda and Bill. It was a very productive time!

After the first few days in our Wiley Point anchorage, the wind began to increase from the east, making it difficult to explore much of the area. Although we were very comfortable on the big boat, riding in the dinghy was a wild, wet adventure. We did venture out to do some snorkeling but it proved to be just too wavy to get in the water. We did manage to check out all the beaches in the area and we saw a few beautiful red starfish on one dinghy ride.

By the time we decided to leave our lovely little spot, there were 8 other sailboats anchored with us. We have learned that most of the cruisers here are only in the area to wait for the next weather window to continue heading south. We met a young couple from Florida who said they were travelling with 5 other sailboats – all were heading further south.

Today (March 5) we moved a grand total of 5 nm from Sapodilla Bay to the marina. Again we had to wait until it was almost high tide and we still crossed over an area that was only 5.6ft deep. Good thing we only need 5ft😁😁. It’s nice to be back in the land of wifi!! We’re in the same spot on the dock and we had a great takeout dinner tonight. Tomorrow we’ll do laundry and finish getting the boat ready for our first guests. Donalda and Bill arrive on Thursday (March 7th) and will be with us until March 19. Time to explore more parts of Turks and Caicos.

We’ve had our few days of dock rest and are now ready to go explore the south side of Providenciales. In our short time here we did laundry, filled our water tanks, had a nice takeout dinner and today we rented a car to do some minor provisioning. We got a limited phone plan with 8 g of data and did some grocery shopping. We spent probably 3 hours getting all our shopping done and then having a nice lunch out.

The island is quite small so it didn’t take much time to drive to the different stops. It is a bit of a challenge because they drive on the left side of the road and they have these quasi round abouts. It took Mark a few turns through the round abouts to figure out who actually has the right away. All was good though – made it back to the marina with no issues and we only used $3.00 of gas!!

The marina has been quick busy since we arrived on Wednesday morning. We’ve watched many boat tours come and go from here – seadoo rentals, pontoon boat tours, and of course many diving excursions all load and return here. There has also been daily arrivals of other sailboats. Today a 33ft sailboat came in – we saw this boat in Clarence Town. The boat is sailed by a solo sailor from Canada. Mark helped him back his boat into the dock and get secured in what’s called a med mooring style of docking (stern against the pier with no dock access except from the stern).

In the morning we are heading out to explore the south side of Providenciales. There are a few anchorages we will visit and if the wind holds true, we’ll be able to stay on the south side until our return to the marina on March 6th. Donalda and Bill arrive on March 7th so we’ll be back at the dock. Unfortunately we won’t have wifi while at anchor for the next week and a half, so no posts until we return here on the 6th.

We made it!! 170 nm from Clarence Town to the Caicos Banks in 28 hours. The wind was northwest the whole journey with the waves pretty much in the same direction. We had all sails up and we were cruising along in the low 7knots for most of the time. It was a very quiet trip – only a few other AIS signals (boats in other words) were out on the water (mostly cargo ships) and we were fortunate to have a clear night with an almost full moon so even the night portion of our passage was easy.

The whole trip was 180nm (from Clarence Town to South Side Marina) and the last 10nm or so getting into our marina was a bit more interesting. The Caicos Banks are very shallow and have lots of coral heads and rocky areas to navigate. As soon as we crossed into the Sandbore Channel (this channel separates Providenciales and West Caicos and gives access to the Caicos Banks), the water depth dropped down to 20ft or so. Very quickly the depth decreased to less than 15ft, but not to worry – we had great visibility (through somewhat sleepy eyes!). Turks & Caicos still uses an old school radio arrival system. Each entering boat must hail “Provo Radio” when you are 12nm away from the islands. We did that and got no answer – it was early. So Mark tried again once we were actually on the Caicos Banks but still no answer even though we heard Provo Radio hailing other vessels. We decided to just do to our destination, South Side Marina and not worry about Provo Radio. We took our sails down about 20 minutes from our turn into the shallow route to South Side. Just when we were back on course, Provo Radio hailed us and went through a crazy number of questions (mostly ones we’d already answered online through Turks & Caicos’ online clear in). This delay definitely caused us a bit of precious mid tide time!!

Finally the questions were all answered and we were ready to turn onto the course to enter South Side Marina. We had been warned to come in no later than mid tide but preferably at high tide. Unfortunately high tide on Feb. 21 was 6 am and 6 pm – we were entering around 11am. All was good for the first part of the 2nm route with depths in the 10ft range. Mark slowed us down as the depth dropped to about 8ft and when we were in this part of the route, we ran aground!! Even though we were going fairly slow, we got stuck hard (and we were going to low tide – not great). Mark quickly hoisted the main sail to try to heel us over so we could motor off (either forward or reverse) – no luck! Up went the jib and we began to bounce and rock in place. Slowly we moved forward and were off the high spot. The rest of the trip into the marina was a nail biter – our draft is 5 ft (we need at least 5.1ft to not touch bottom) and at one point our depth metre said we were in 4.9ft of water!! I guess we were plowing sand at that point!! We finally reached the entrance green and red buoys and turned into the marina basin. We were secured to the dock and settled in by about 11:30am.

After lunch Mark had to check us in through customs and immigration. The 2 officers were at South Side earlier in the day so they had to return to check in us and 2 other vessels. Only the Captain of each ship goes ashore to check in – everyone else is supposed to stay onboard. So I cleaned up the interior of the boat (did dishes, put the main cabin back together because we set it up as a bed when doing long passages, removed all the pillows that were securing items during our passages) and then got connected to the wifi. Mark was back aboard by about 2 pm with our stamped passports but no cruising license. The officers didn’t have time to do that so they’ll come back later to give us our cruising permit for the 5 weeks we’ll be here.

It was a great trip over and to celebrate we ordered dinner from the on-site restaurant (Bob’s Bar and Eats), brought it back to the boat and had a bottle of bubbly!! Now we have 2 weeks to explore Providenciales before Donalda and Bill join us on March 7th to March 19th. Evelyn, Caroline and their friend Samantha will be aboard from March 20 – 27 so we’ll have lots of company here!!