Florida to Georgetown

Last you heard from us we were stuck in Florida waiting on weather to get back to the Bahamas. We finally found a good weather window to leave on December 26th in the early evening and arrived at Bimini and anchored at Cat Island the following day. Had a safe crossing which is always a relief. We had to wait out some more weather for a couple of days before moving forward. I’m going to fast forward to when we got to Georgetown, Exumas which was within a few days from our arrival to the Bahamas since I am so far behind on the updates of our journey. We arrived in Georgetown and met up with Hope on January 4th in the afternoon, got caught up and did some exploring for the next few days before their daughter and her family arrived. After her daughter and family had come and gone, it was time for the arrival of their two new guests and for our friend Marsha to come onboard with us for 8 days. We had so much fun sharing all the sights and going on a couple of day sails with Marsha. We went to a sand bar at Man O War Cay which was incredibly breathtaking, went to town a few times to the straw market for souvenirs, and to the grocery store, and for a delicious lunch that Marsha treated us to. One day we hiked up to a monument at the Monument anchorage on Stocking Island. We swam almost every day, we paddle boarded, and just had an all around great time.

One afternoon we had quite a surprise while anchored in Goat Cay, a police boat came blasting over to our boat with several men wearing camo and black boots who boarded our boat. It was a bit intimidating at first. But they turned out to be super friendly and just wanted to see our passports and our cruising permit. They were apparently doing this at all of the nearby anchorages. Harley barked at two of the men once they boarded, so the lead officer pointed his finger and repremanded Harley in fun.

January 21st, the day that Marsha left happened to be the most challenging of days to be riding the dinghy to town to get her to the airport. The winds were the highest they had been her entire visit and the fetch was high. We dressed up like Paddington Bear, wrapped Marsha’s luggage in garbage bags and took a wild wet and bumpy ride to town. We got Marsha safe and sound to town and into the taxi along with Kory and Kerry’s guests…Richard and Bryan.

At this juncture, after all guests were on their way back to the states, this is when Hope and we were going to make plans to go back north to see the little islands in the Exumas we had zipped past on our way to Georgetown. But the plans changed and Hope realized they needed to be in the Caribbean by a certain date to meet a relative that was flying in the following month and also their cruising permit for the Bahamas would not be valid after mid-February so they had to move south sooner than later. Even though we had planned to go south as well, we weren’t ready and wanted to see more of the Exumas first. The day before we parted ways, we met up with Hope briefly, said our ‘see ya later’s’ and planned to head north the following day which was Saturday. Hope’s plan was to leave Sunday and head south straight to Puerto Rico…a 4 1/2 day non-stop passage.