Back in Florida!

Our last sunset as we were heading back to Florida

We are back in Florida again, having crossed back last Thursday (I think).

Sunrise coming across the Gulf Stream

It's always sad to leave and head for home, but it's also good to be back - does that make sense? We got back in time to call our granddaughter Kate and wish her a very happy 7th birthday. We will celebrate it with her when we get back to Tennessee and she gets back from Disney World.

The last couple of weeks we were in the Abacos it was very windy! That seemed to be the theme for this season. The pattern seemed to be for the forecast to show we would have some nice settled weather for 4 or 5 days and we would get excited just thinking about the fact that we could move around to some different islands, we'd pick up the anchor and move, have maybe two settled days and here come the strong winds again! We spent a week at Manjack Cay, which has another gorgeous beach for walking and scavenging. I had hoped to get in several days of kayaking and snorkeling, but that didn't happen since the wind piped up to 20 - 25 knots. Just getting from the boat into the dinghy in that much wind guarantees you getting wet. One of the small (uninhabited) islands bordering Manjack is Crab Cay and it has a small beach that was a shorter, drier ride to get to for a tiny bit of excercise. So one afternoon I loaded up the pups in the dinghy and took off, only to arrive at the beach to two pigs, a momma and a very young one, wading out in the water looking for me to feed them. We've been to this beach many times and never seen or heard of pigs here, so needless to say I was excited and so were the dogs. I hadn't anticipated them so didn't have anything for them.

These are the pigs on No Name Cay
picture from s/v Laughter

There is another island, No Name Cay (actually the name of it), that we heard now has 5 pigs. We didn't get to go there this time because of the wind. Tom & Jan on m/v Laughter stopped there and Jan got to feed them.

We left Manjack and headed a little farther north to Powell Cay, which is another uninhabited island with very nice beaches both on the Atlantic side and the Sea of Abaco side. Spent a good bit of time walking these. The first night we were there, there were 3 other boats in the anchorage. We had cocktail hour with everyone on the beach. We knew one couple, but this gave us an opportunity to meet two new couples. Turns out both couples (that we didn't know) had just recently arrived from Florida and were beginning their cruising season. All three boats left the following morning for other islands, so we had the place to ourselves - at least for a little while. The path leading to the Atlantic beach on the north end of the island is like walking through the jungle. Luckily people have hung various plastic jugs and other things on trees along the way to guide you. The path is about two feet wide and you've got to dodge the poison wood most of the way. Luckily neither of us broke out with blisters from it. We must have spent three hours walking this beach. We had the entire beach to ourselves, so.......... perfect opportunity to work on getting rid of those tan lines!!! Except after a couple of hours we look down the beach and we see two more people walking toward us! Where did they come from??? We'd left our bathing suits back at the edge of the path coming down to the beach. Busted!! We stayed at Powell for 2 1/2 days, which wasn't long enough, but the weather window was there to make our exit from the Abacos back to Florida, so we took it. Both days we were at Powell we counted numerous boats making their way farther north prepping to head back to the states. Lots of chatter on the radio between the boats about where and when they were leaving from and going to. We left Powell Cay at 11:30am Thursday and headed for Ft. Pierce. We saw numerous large ships in the gulfstream, but only once did we have to slow down and alter our course.


One of the ships we encountered during the crossing - we gave him plenty of room!!

 It was a decent crossing and uneventful until just before we headed into the Ft. Pierce inlet. We see this boat flying out our way, perhaps a 30' - 35' center console boat with four very large outboards. I commented to Jeff that they were really in a hurry to get somewhere and they were bouncing all over the place throwing up huge sprays of water. They went past us and then promptyly turned around and headed over to us. Customs & Border Patrol came out to greet us!! Not really to greet us. They pulled alongside and asked a few questions and then let us go and said they would be back. Took off towards our friends on 'Makani' and for whatever reason, boarded them. They checked out their refrigerator and basically all their food and liquor, as well as their passports and ship's papers, then said their goodbyes. Very strange! Other friends were boarded by the Coast Guard as they were approaching Lake Worth inlet. In any case, we arrived at Ft. Pierce by noon on Friday and were tied to our mooring at Vero Beach by 3:00pm. We were exhausted! Neither of us can sleep much coming across, even though we take turns at the helm, so we were in bed and asleep by 8:00pm.

This fellow hitched a ride with us for the last 10 miles into Ft. Pierce.

We had a couple of restful, although very hot days at Vero. Thought we were going to melt yesterday! It's 15 degrees warmer here than the Abacos. And in the Abacos we'd just get in the water if we were hot. I'm not getting in this brown water!!! But I did get in a couple of good kayaking days! We left Vero Beach in this morning and expect to be back in NSB on Wednesday afternoon, if we don't lolly gag.  Funny how you look forward to having access to certain things when you get back.  Mine is fresh boiled peanuts at the farmer's market in NSB and Blue Moon draft beer at Malony's.

I'll try to make one more post with miscellanous pictures of our trip.