December 30 - January 4:  Bahamas!!!

Dec 30-31: Staging

     Staging is the term - and we very recently read about this - given to the preparation for a passage.  Some of the preparation we already understood, such as topping off the fuel and water, and reprovisioning.  Some things are common sense to do for any cruising voyage: stowing your dinghy and securing all things on deck, for example.   We did our staging slowly, as the weather conditions kept changing, and for a little while, we weren't even sure we'd even try for the crossing.
    Without a fridge, we made a few more ice runs, reminding us what a pain that had been all summer in Canada.  It's much warmer in the South; ice just doesn't last very long.  Still, we had food that needed to be kept until we could eat it up, giving us some pretty creative meals and snacks.  (Chips and leftover mole sauce...)  Then on Wednesday we hauled anchor and headed back North a bit toward Angelfish Creek, where we would begin our crossing.  Thursday.  Or possibly Thursday night.  Or maybe Friday.  Maybe even Friday night.  Depending on the weather.  We dropped the hook in Blackwater Sound for the night.
     Thursday - New Year's Eve - we decided a crossing time:  4:00 am tomorrow morning, New Year's Day.  We went to a marina close to Angelfish Creek to top off the fuel, and were surprised by the $10 water charge.  The dock attendant seemed embarrassed to charge us, and urged us to "take as much as you want."  So we filled everything we had - jugs, bottles, as well as shower bags and water tanks - I even did a couple loads of hand laundry and Dan took to the hose around to wash off the deck and windows.  Then we moved over to join the growing fleet at anchor outside Angelfish Creek.  Friday morning at 4:00 seemed like the best time for a lot of vessels.  It was good to know we would have company.
     We stowed and tied down and Dan pulled off the sail cover and made sure the reef was secure and turned in early, setting both our alarms for 3:30 am.  We had lights out at the unheard of time of 7:30 pm but got up again at 8:00 to watch the New Year's Eve fireworks display from a nearby marina.  I remarked to Dan that it was considerate of them to do that early.  I spoke too soon - they had another, longer and bigger display at midnight.  When our alarms went off a few hours later, we hadn't had much sleep, but we were more than ready to go.
 
January 1, 2016 New Year's Day in the Bahamas!

     We were the second of four boats out, and it didn't take long before we lost sight of all the others.  One had started well ahead of us, and the other two just couldn't seem to catch up, even though we weren't cruising very fast.  Two hours later at sunrise we could just barely make out everyone's masts, and then we were alone.  It was an uneventful crossing, a little lumpy, but spectacularly devoid of sea life save for the little flying fish fleeing on both sides of us and the lazy fin of one mola mola.  No whales, no dolphins, not even any birds.  We were surprised; we'd expected to see more activity.  The air temperature was in the eighties, as was the seawater, which just seemed so abnormal for deep seas!  We got to Cat Cay about 1:30 in the afternoon and tied up at the yacht club there for customs and immigration check in.  I don't know why we hadn't thought of it, but we were a bit dismayed to find that the yacht clubs and marinas all charged a $100 fee to dock for customs.  It's waived if you spend the night, but this being a holiday weekend and them being a yacht club, it was closed to non-members and spending the night wasn't an option, even if we had wanted to.  Chalk it up to needing to do a little more research.  Check in didn't take more than forty minutes or so (and they barely looked at all that paperwork we'd amassed for the cat!) and we were on our way again.  We pushed on another ten miles through crystal clear aquamarine waters before just tossing the anchor over.  Not another boat in sight, no land nearby, just us and the beautiful sea and sky.  We were very tired but managed a proper celebration of both New Year's and our successful crossing with a small bottle of champagne and a spaghetti dinner.

New Year's celebration - Ocean Reef Marina, Key Largo

Gun Cay, Bahamas

Q Flag up for checking in.

Sunset in the Bahamas, New Year's Day.

Jan 2-4

    We went swimming and snorkeling just after breakfast, got underway for a few hours, shut off the engine and drifted to swim and snorkel some more, and then cruised some more.  No other boats in sight that Saturday.  We did have a couple of dolphins come play along our bow and they were pretty much our only company.

Dolphins!  See how clear the water is.

What a lovely place this is - so calm, and so beautiful.  We anchored again in the middle of nowhere, just stopped and tossed over the hook.  So funny to see it lying there on the bottom.
     That night we were in bed when we heard a thump and a splash.  Of course our first thought was: Tommie!!  I ran up on deck calling her name and yelled for Dan to get a flashlight.  I could hear splashing but couldn't see anything.  Dan came up on deck and played the light around, both of us calling for her.  "Look!"  He said, his light picking out something large and pale.  Later he admitted his first thought was that something had eaten our cat.  "A turtle!"  It was indeed, a large green turtle, just astern of us, acting a little dazed.  It must have banged into our boat while swimming.  We kept looking for the cat, and when we looked back into the boat, there she was, sitting on the pilothouse floor, staring at us with an expression that clearly showed she figured the day had finally come: we'd lost our minds.
     Sunday there was more boating activity.  Many, many large yachts came speeding by, traveling from East to West.  Holiday weekend over?  We made it to the Berry Islands just after noon, and anchored off Chub Cay.  I went in for my daily swim and snorkel while Dan took a nap.  There was a large engine block quietly rusting off our stern and several colorful fish were hanging around it.  Otherwise, the bottom there was a massive conch graveyard.  We'd gotten a fishing license along with our cruising permit, and there was a daily limit of 6 conch listed on it.  "Any good ones down there?"  Dan asked when I told him about the thousands of conch shells.  I wasn't sure, and didn't want to dive down to paw around.  A short while later, two Bahamian fishing vessels pulled into the area and we could hear steady hammering as they harvested conch shells for the meat, tossing the broken shells overboard.  Turns out it really was a conch graveyard.  Dan thought between the hammering and the growing swells we should move around the corner of Chub Cay to Frazer's Hog Cay, and he also wanted to get away from that engine block, in case parts of it stuck up enough to brush our hull if the tide dropped.  So we raised anchor and moved to a quieter location.

Conch fisherman.

Sunset, Frazer's Hog Cay

     Monday dawned lowery.  It had rained on and off in the night and we made good use of the water for laundry and washing.  The winds had picked up and the water, which had been fairly placid since New Year's Day, was now pretty choppy.   We've been spoiled by all the calm water!!  We raised the sails and headed for Nassau, on New Providence Island.
     Nassau is a very busy harbor.  One must call the Harbor Control Officer to request permission to enter or leave the harbor.  There are several marinas, two large cruise ship docks, one commercial dock, anchorages, and seaplane landing areas.  As soon as we entered the harbor (with permission), a patrol boat came right out to warn us off to the side as a behemoth of a cruise ship was getting ready to leave.  We pretty much hugged the shoreline and inched forward, leery of their prop wash, trying to get out of their turning basin, while the patrol boat and guide boat kept an eye on us, the cruise ship, and all the rest of the activity in the harbor.  Meanwhile, the tourists on board the cruise boat leaned over the railings and waved to us, oblivious.  The ship came within fifty feet of us, and we were but ten feet from the shore.  I can't imagine anchoring in this harbor, although people do.  We took a slip at a marina for the night.

Nassau - waiting for the cruise ship to pass.