We’ve had a great few days making our way to the northernmost islands in the Abacos, getting ready to head home.
It’s been a perfect few days for Bobby and Zach to get familiar with Tilia. We’ve had great sailing weather with the opportunity to use three of our sails and get the feel for sailing under most points of sail, even with reefed sails. In addition, they’ve had time at the helm, anchoring, and catching mooring balls. Better yet, they got a chance to engage in “roadside maintenance” when an impeller failed on one of the engines and needed to be replaced.
We had time for some fun activities as well.
- We spent a couple of nights at Green Turtle Cay. There, we rented a golf cart and explored the island. While Anne was working, Jim, Zach and Bobby got to try a Goombay Smash at the bar where it was allegedly first served. It’s a combination of dark rum and fruit juices, and it received a 5 star rating.
- We did a bit of snorkeling and lobster and conch hunting (no success but fun!).
- We did some beachcombing and even opened a couple of coconuts – one over-ripe, one green, but still good to try!
We had some excitement at Green Turtle. We took a mooring in one of its harbors, because the chart noted it had ‘poor holding.’ This means that because of the characteristics of the bottom, it can be hard to firmly set an anchor. Sure enough, in the middle of the night (it’s always the middle of the night!), a little squall came through, and the wind went from 10knots to sustained in the 30s, gusts over 40. We were snug and safe on our mooring ball, but we did watch several boats that started to drag. That means they have to raise anchor and attempt to reset it. We saw one boat go through this exercise several times before they finally got the anchor to set. No fun at 3am! We were grateful to be safe but certainly didn’t have the best night of sleep.
Now we are at Great Sale Cay, at the northernmost edge of the Abacos. We’ve been watching weather a couple of times a day, and we have a great window to go to Charleston, SC. Our ultimate destination is Beaufort, NC, but the weather won’t permit that in one shot. We plan to arrive Charleston by Monday morning the 23rd after about 48 hours underway. We will spend a couple of days there, and then Anne and Zach have to each head back to work. Bobby and Jim will continue the trip. Hopefully, they’ll get a weather window to do an overnight out on the ocean to Beaufort, but if they don’t, they can always safely make their way north on the Intracoastal Waterway.
We’ve spent our final day at Great Sale Cay going through safety briefings, prepping food and getting the boat ready. We even had time for a shore excursion and an evening beach bonfire!