Great harbour Cay, Berry Islands

Finally we made it to our first and maybe only stop in the Bahamas this year. We love it here in Great Harbour Cay and feel it's like our home out of the country. We may stay around the Berry's and do some exploring which most people miss because they are so into getting farther south.
Amy and Jeremy will be flying in on the 31st of this month, so we will be here for that and  hope for some really nice weather while their here.

Looking for leak (Note the bloody right arm and can you feel the heat)

The crossing took place on the 31 instead of the 30th because once we got out the inlet at Lake Worth, Jon realized we had antifreeze leaking from somewhere, so we shut down the engine and drifted backwards even though we had our sails up for about an hour to try to find the problem with no luck.
At that point we made the decision to head back to Lake Worth and anchor the night while trying to find the problem. If he couldn't find it we would head back to Stuart and make a plan from there. Jon pulled all sorts of things apart and at about 7pm he realized that two bolts on the thermostat housing were loose. A much simpler problem than thought.

eating MRE's just before dark (Thanks Amy) YUK

We gathered our thoughts at that point, and then called our Friends Bud and Jill whom were in Lake Worth to see what way they were heading in the morning. They were heading to West End, so we would just meet them in GHC.
We ended up getting up before dawn to dingy ashore and let the dogs go pee and off once again out the channel. This time all the way over to GHC a total of 27 hours.

All tethered in and taking a nap
 Note the 1st sun rise of 2012 in front of us

We did have one causality which was just before dark of course, the AIS stopped working or rather it had a malfunction and could only let us know when ships were within a few miles of us and this doesn't help me much because I try to keep ships away by more miles than that, so when one shows up its too late. I find its always something that's broke when owning a boat............BOAT; you know the acronym!





Jon's morning catch but someone caught him too and tried to bite his tail off



Marina manatee coming to say hi

Bud and Jill arriving to sit with us before their crew show up in Nassau

Anyhow now we are in GHC and our friends are right next to us in Paradise.

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.