Waiting on weather window

 We have been waiting on a good weather window to make an offshore jump of 50 miles further south.  Winds have been strong out of the East to Southeast - so not good.   Waves have been spectacular though, crashing on the eastern beaches.

Lynyard Cay east side in strong East winds and swell

Moving south, changing zincs

 We moved south, stopped at Powell Cay, and had a nice time.  Walked to beach on east side.  Very pretty beach.

East side of beach.  Not much trash here

Surrounded by sharks, nice beach walk

 Still at Allans / Pensacola Cay.  Nice weather.   Still surrounded by sharks.  Have been working on identification, and 95% sure they are bull sharks.    Not ones to go swimming with.  Sharks in the Bahamas are not uncommon, but usually you are out of the water by 4:00 each day, as usually the sharks come around during twilight hours.    You can generally plan on mid day being shark free.  Unfortunately, we think that people have been feeding the sharks, or cleaning their fish catch from the boats and these have become used to boats having food.  They circle the boat all day long.  We have had from two to five swimming circles around us since we have arrived, with no visible break.

 After our covid test came back negative, we left North Palm Beach, and had a relatively smooth motor across the gulf stream to arrive in the Bahamas at West End on Grand Bahama.  Left at 5:30 at night, just as dark was settling in, and arrive at 6:00 next morning after motoring on one engine most the night.   Got in a little too early, so had to slow down for about a 1/2 hour at the end and wait for daylight to enter the narrow channel.

Check in went well, and we left by 9:30 a.m. to head to Great Sale Cay.  Nice to be back in the blue water.

Sailing from West End to Great Sale Cay

Vero Beach to the Bahamas

 We left Vero Beach, and headed further south on the ICW down to North Palm Beach, where we could wait on a good weather window to cross to the Bahamas, and also get our pre departure Covid tests, required for entry.  Pretty normal ICW motor trip - although we did get a little time motor-sailing.

Osprey with fish

Motor-sailing with jib

Swiss chalet style seems out of place in Florida

One of the many bridges that we had to have open for us

Some fancier homes the further south we go

Probably only a 3 bed 2 bath :)

We ended up in North Palm for almost a week.  Got some final groceries, had some more Amazon shipments sent to us, and did projects.

Lots of boats here stored in enclosed buildings, and move with large forklifts

Dinghy dock at North Palm Beach,  Have to wade a bit to get to the boat, but it works

Nighttime skyline at North Palm Beach

Went to mall, as there is a Amazon store there, we could ship items to.  It was ready for Christmas

Fluffy white poodles in their stroller at mall in North Palm Beach.  Don't see that at every mall.  Guess it fits in with the fancy homes we have seen.