Just waiting..............

This week has been very busy with all sorts of things.

First off: Jon flew back to New York to settle any last minute things and to totally remove our stuff from our RV that was at the marina we use to work at. He has been away since Friday.
Next, Sarah had to have more surgery to remove some very ugly spots and bumps off of her body. She is now recovering. I am still waiting for my test result to come back to find out if I have the okay to leave next week for the Bahamas.
When we first got here Jon landed jobs instantly to work on boats and motors. One of which he has already completed, he fixed an old Evinrude motor for a nice Canadian couple Don and Sue. He made enough for us to have a very nice dinner one night, drinks included. When he returns from New York he has arranged to install and work on some new gauges and electronics for Chris and Louise, who are also from Canada. He decided to decline on any of the other work for now, or we will never make it to the Bahamas.














 The weather here has been very warm and sunny, and the water in the morning is very calm. Almost every morning there have been dolphins swimming next to the boat. 

an afternoon storm

I can't wait for Jon to show back up so we can get on with our adventures!

Sad Good-Bye but happy to go.........

Jon has finished all the little last minute things on the boat and gives the "ok its time to depart sign". Now we are just waiting for the wind to die down a bit more. Monday we were pretty much ready to leave but then as we looked at the weather we decided to wait out the next front so we would not be at some remote place and have something go wrong. Of course Jeff has said that if we run into any problems call him on the radio and he can be there in 15 minutes. Wow what a guy.....These type of people don't come around everyday, well maybe they don't because they spend most of their time here on the Island, and since they are great people they stopped by and asked us to join them for Cheeseburgers and fries at a local place in town, the burgers were great just like they said(thanks Jeff and Lana). We are having a hard time saying goodbye to this place.
So our plans are to leave first thing either Tomorrow or Friday which we will leave up to the weather gods and decide when we walk the dogs to the other side of the island in the morning and see how the seas look. We will be at and anchorage one night on the inside of an island south of here for shelter then off to Nassau for one or two night before heading to the Exuma on the eastern side of the Bahamas.


Its really funny how long your beard can grow when you stop moving.....















OK Schyler we forgot FPM's koozie or we would have used that instead, so here is another plug for our good friend. This was my favorite shot.

Towed into Great Harbour Cay Marina

Our journey began at 9am Wednesday the 15th, we headed out from Stuart with a temp of around 49 but sunny we made very good time and not to many hassles at the bridges along the ICW . As usual we did run into a few boats that thought they needed to be in the front of the line which by the time we made North Lake Worth the count was ten behind us. We anchored in Lake Worth with Hey Jude and Quest, this is a nice anchorage and has a place to dingy up to with a store just down the road. We all had planned on crossing together in Stuart and decided to go all the way to the Berry Islands which would be around 22 hours, all of us have dogs and knew it would be the hardest on them. The crossing was wonderful with only 3 to 4 ft waves and swells but our speed was under 3.5knots with the wind on our nose all the way. Once in the North West Providence Channel the sea flatten right out and we were able to sail with the wind more to the south so our speed was around 6.5. At sunrise Judy on Hey Jude and I let some line out in hopes to catch dinner. Judy was the first to hook a huge sailfish which broke her line and of course she lost her lure, about an hour went by and something was on my line so I started to reel it in with lots of fight from him. Well no dinner for us! The fish ended up being a barracuda so we took his picture and let him go.
We started to make our way onto the banks at Great Stirrup Cay which is a hang out for cruise ships, Hey Jude and Quest were about 2 miles ahead of us and as we all started to make our way in the engine slowly stared to die like it does with a clogged filter. Jon
called the others to let them know we would be a moment and one moment after another lead to an hour so we called back to them to let them know it might be a problem and to go to the marina to check in with customs. Jon found the raw water impeller had broke two of the impellers off and one was lodged in the outlet port and blocking the outgoing water so the engine had overheated without us taking note of the temp rising. Needless to say we sailed as far as we could to the opening of the marina and Steve ended up coming out by dingy and towing us in(Thanks guys). We are at the dock now and Jon is starting to pull the engine apart to see if we can get her running or if we need to order parts. So if anyone would like to visit us and enjoy the Sunshine and gorgeous beaches here in the Berry Island now would be the time and there and flights every day to the island. Total time for the crossing was 30 hours.