The latest: We were at West end for 2 days because of the generator issue but that is fixed now. yea! We seriously have had something break at least every day and I am not exaggerating. Anyway, we left West End, Grand Bahama on Saturday morning and headed out. We were planning to go to Great Harbour Cay but our plan changed a few times in the course of our sail. We had great wind and were sailing fast, so we decided to keep going further southeast to Elethura. After a few hours the wind suddenly changed and we were going super slow because it was coming at us and was strong (12-16 knots) and didn't work for sailing. So we changed plans again and headed more south for a different route. We crossed the Northwest Providence channel south and went through the northwest channel. When we were going south, we were able to catch the winds great and sailed at 8-10 knots/hour. That is fast for us. We sailed like that several hours -into the night making good time and were excited to be getting down closer to our southern destinations. After turning east through the channel we had to go much slower however, so we didn't get to anchor until we got to Bird Cay at about 5 am. The sailing had gone well much of the time, but there were some stressful times and we were pretty exhausted. This past week and a half of intense day and night sailing and multiple boat issues has been very challenging. Everyday I feel totally out of my comfort zone and it has been hard.
Sunday morning we were ready for a much needed break. It turned out pretty nice. It was overcast and rainy occasionally but still a nice day. After we had our little family church meeting, we dinghied over to the little island of bird cay and walked around and explored it. It was pretty. Then the gang found some conch and we got excited about trying that out for dinner. Paul and the kids put on the snorkel gear and had fun finding starfish and more conch. We made fried chicken and fried conch for dinner and everyone even tried it. It was really fun. Paul, Jack, and I fixed the baton cap on the sail that had sheared off during the previous night's sail and we were feeling happy that nothing had broken yet on Sunday when suddenly one of our ceiling light fixtures just fell to the floor and shattered. No surprise sadly.
Monday morning we decided to go for a short ride to Chub Cay to check it out. It is really beautiful here. We anchored in front of a pretty beach and had a beautiful sunny day. This was a day that we needed! We snorkeled tons, jumped into the water from the boat, went in the dinghy to check out the island a little and were able to relax. We saw starfish, stingrays, crabs, and some fish. The kids found lots of sand dollars and were so happy today. Our minds and spirits are feeling rejuvinated. It was nice to get some physical exercise swimming too because that hasn't been easy on the boat lately. We have some great cross fit exercises to do on the boat (thanks Will) but it is kind of hard to do them when we are out sailing- too rocking and rolling. They will work great for anchoring though. Anyway, it was a really much needed, lovely day!
Now the plan -if we don't change it multiple times- is to head to Nassau tomorrow. It is about 30 miles away so that will take us 5-7 hours depending on our luck with the wind.
I will try to get the pics to upload again from Nassau. I don't know what the deal is here.
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