Gulf Stream, Green Turtle and Black Sound

 

Our blogging silence has been entirely due to lack of hearty enough wifi, and not lack of excitement. A recap of our days:

 

Friday morning at 12am we hoisted anchor in Palm Beach and set out across to the Bahamas Bank. Though conditions weren’t ideal and we didn’t see glassy-calm seas for our trip, the 6-9 knots of apparent wind almost behind us made for a good night of motor sailing, albeit a busy night, since we spent it messing with preventers and ensuring that things (kids) were still stowed properly after the sloppy waves would come along. Andy was at the helm for most of the night, and I got my favored pre-dawn shift, which can boost any tired sailor in a pinch, since the sun rising on the horizon is second best to coffee in the cockpit.  The girls joined in just as we were coming onto the bank- twenty feet of beautiful blue green waters for the rest of the day.

 

We motorsailed for the rest of the day until we landed in an anchorage on Great Sale Cay, and were able to go ashore to stretch our legs.

 

Up early on Saturday and we had an amazing sail to Green Turtle- wind on the beam for the morning and comfortably shifting ahead of us in the afternoon. Third favorite piece? Napping in the cockpit while someone else does the work- check.

We decided on dockage in Green Turtle since it was forecasted to blow quite a bit through the weekend and into Monday/Tuesday, so we pulled into Leeward Yacht Club and have so far found it to be pretty perfect. A pool, a bar, a restaurant and wonderfully helpful people all around. Yesterday we rented a golf cart and went to Gillam Bay beach, which was an incredible sight to behold. White sand forever, a shallow bay with plenty of sting rays and sand dollars (though we came up short- our sand dollar hunting excursions were easily distracted by general beach fun by the kids), and aqua water to blind ourselves with. We kept saying that it looked fake it was so beautiful, like a Hollywood set director had been here minutes before to touch it up for our arrival.

 

 

Now it’s Monday morning and we awoke to rain blasting the boat (hooray! free washdown!), and an incredible squall. It has been blowing all night, but we arranged ourselves in the marina on the leeward side of the dock, so we’re comfortable, and rocking just the wee-est bit. The bulk of this system looks to be out of our hair by late morning, so our plan is to take the kids into New Plymouth to explore the town for a bit before beaching it for the afternoon. First though, breakfast and school. Lily is currently putting to paper a story of Violet’s (that Violet plans to also illustrate) about the rats that lives in Violet’s hair. Their names are Hairold (see what she did there?!), Bob, Jeff and Curtains, but that’s the only sneak peak you’ll get for now. Good stuff.