Homeward Bound

Well, all good things must come to an end, and it is time I leave the Abacos and start my journey back to Chesapeake Bay. My insurance agent says I must be back by June 1 to beat the hurricanes. So it is time to leave. I am sitting in Marsh Harbor waiting for decent weather. That is, for the wind to die down. It has been blowing in the neighborhood of 20-30 knots for a few days now, and should die down by Friday to 10-15 knots. Then, giving the seas a day to die down, and I will head north, then west back to the US. It looks like Saturday I will transit into the Atlantic Ocean to go around Whale Cay, and then back onto Little Bahama Bank for the trip west. This is only about a 4 mile passage, but the cuts through the reefs can get rather dangerous if the waves are breaking in the cuts. So one waits for calmer weather to do that short passage into the Atlantic and back. Then it will probably be three days across the relatively shallow Little Bahama Bank (10-20 feet) until the water drops off and I have to cross the Gulf Stream to Florida. Based on current weather projections, I am hoping to do that next Tuesday, but the seven day forecast is notorious for not being accurate, so we shall see, and only do the crossing when it is safe.

It has been a wonderful adventure so far. Lots of new places, some new people, some interesting challenges, and, even if the locals say this has been the coldest and windiest winter in memory, the weather has been a whole lot better than from where I came from on Chesapeake Bay. I look forward to expanding on what I did this year, in the coming year. I plan to cruise further south, and see more of the Bahamas, including Eleuthera and the Exumas. In the meantime, I will get back to the Chesapeake and do some work on NAVIGATOR over the summer before heading back.

I would like to thank all those that communicated with me through e-mail. It was a great joy to see hoe everyone was doing up in the cold north. It meant a lot to me to receive your notes. I also want to thank Kristin and Greg Torok for their visit at the end of March. It sort of got me out of an end of winter funk by having to get the boat cleaned up so it was presentable for them. I had a lot of fund showing them around the Abacos. We went sailing, swimming, drinking, ate too much, and generally just had a great time. All of you who did not visit, you missed a great time. I will expect to see you down here next winter at some point.

I would also like to thank my good friend and old college friend Rick Glasby for keeping a blog going for me. That is not something I am use to, so his help was invaluable in keeping everyone up to date on my doings. If anyone has not seen it yet, it can be found at:

http://adventuresofthenavigator.blogspot.com/

This will be the last update for until I get back to the US, as the cost of internet access is proving to be a burden when ordering it on a week to week basis. Once I begin the trip north on the Intracoastal Waterway, I will update again.

Cliff
S/V Navigator