Next stop, Berry Islands

We leave tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. for the Berry Islands. John has found another boat at the marina to do the trip with us, as its about a 10 hour day at sea.  Weather looks good though, so south we go!

Lucaya

We left West End at 9:30 this morning, bound for Lucaya. We had a beautiful sail down the western edge of Grand Bahama, reaching 8.3 knots under full sail on a beam reach. We rounded the corner, straight into the wind, and finished our trip with wind on the nose in 3-4 foot swell. John did a great job driving though, and no one suffered too much. We are staying at the Grand Bahama Yacht Club for the next 2 days. There is a beautiful pool area, and water shuttle to a marketplace, which we will do tomorrow. The kids were already befriended by 2 other kids, an 11 yr old girl and 13 yr old boy from Annapolis who have been sailing for 3 years.

Tyler has been obsessing about opening a coconut, and finally just did it. Pic below.

BAHAMAS!!

We are in the Bahamas! We left Lake Worth at 4 a.m. and pulled into Old Bahama Bay Marina at the West End at 2:15 p.m. The trip was easy, water smooth, light wind. We pulled into crystal clear water, and very hot temps. Love it!!!

We saw 2 water spouts during the trip, which was very exciting! For anyone who doesn't know, they're twisters of water getting sucked up into the clouds. Not something you want to sail into, but cool to see. My picture below of the cloudy sky is just after....missed the shot. :( You can see the bands of dark still though.

We are cancelling our Verizon service for now, and will be getting a Bahamian phone service. Until then, we can get in touch via computer, google voice, or Skype.

After discovering that the gulf stream was flat...

Who knew that conch had eyes? Makes me think twice about whether I'll eat it or not...

Manatee in the Trip!

Like mom said, a manatee came to our stern. It was my idea to name Fatsy. He was at least six feet long, by about three feet wide, and, so Fatsy wasn't a bad name for him!

Dad was afraid he would hurt the manatee if he went under the boat. Thankfully,  Fatsy didn't!  We saw a few scars on his back, hopefully they weren't from propellers!

This was our first manatee up close, and I hope it wasn't our last!!

By Liza
Second mate
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Schnauck.blogspot.com

Alexa C. Schnauck
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Manatee!

Finally, a manatee visits our boat! Hard to see from this picture but it was about 7 feet long and massive!

Quick Update - we may cross tomorrow AM

So we are currently moving from Stuart to Lake Worth. There is a weather window that looks like it may provide us an opening to cross to the Northern Bahamas tomorrow morning.

This is a significant change in our original thinking and our intention to cross from Miami.  Given the wind has blown over 20 for what seems like 2 weeks, if we have this gap, we need to take it or risk being stuck on this side of the Stream for a long period of time.

We're ready to go and the boat is prepped. If we do go we will miss Jen and Jamie and Bob. I hope they understand!  We'll see them on the return in the Spring.

Wish us luck and fair winds!  We'll post again as soon as we have a connection in the Bahamas or if we decide to abort in the morning.

Stuart

We're in Stuart, FL at the Sunset Bay Marina on a mooring. $15 a night, very reasonable! We rented a car, and have been exploring the area. Last night we went to the Grills house for a great dinner. We had a wonderful time and look forward to returning the hospitality next summer.  We picked up several packages sent there by family and friends, thanks everyone so much!

John and Tyler just left to go to West Marine to pick up paper chart kits of the Bahamas. Expensive necessity. It will be great to be able to plan though. The charts we have now do not go into the detail we need for a 6'6" draft boat. After West Marine the boys are going to pick us up and we'll meet Ross, Ashlyne, and Kyler at the beach.

We'll be here until Tuesday probably.