Left the U.S.A on Monday morning, around 8:00, and had a very fast sail across the gulf stream and over to the Bahamas. Entered the Little Bahama Bank, north of Grand Bahama Island around 5:00 - averaging about 7 knots for our trip across.
 |
| Upping anchor at North Palm Beach |
 |
| West Palm beach, lots of liveaboard derelict boats near here |
Continued sailing throughout the night across the bank, and at around 4:00 in the morning, we were about 8 miles due west of Pensacola cay, when we got a call on the radio. A boat, saw us on AIS (Automated Identification System), and called and said they had run aground and could we please come help. We told them "Yes", and fired up the engine, plus sailing to make best speed to their position. They did not have AIS on transmit, so finding them was a bit difficult, but we finally saw their lights. It was a pitch black night, no moon. Perception of distance to lights is very difficult when it is dark, and we did not want to get too close to shore, so anchored a bit off, lowered the dinghy and zoomed in.
The boat was a 41' Sun Odyssey Monohull sailboat. The captain had fallen asleep on watch, and his buddy was very new to sailing. The boat was in an upright position, as the shore they hit was deep, below a steep cliff about 8' high. Very lucky for them. They had put out an anchor to try to kedge off, but tide was at its low, so no luck. They gave us the halyard, to try to tilt the boat, which worked, and she wiggled, but no luck getting off. So then a bow line and halyard, to pull from the bow and top of mast - still no luck.
We then readjusted the kedge anchor system, to have more leverage, and then we went and pulled mast and bow again with our dink - all 20 hp on full, and then used a winch from the stern on the anchor - that with the tide coming in, we pulled the boat off the beach. We stood by, while they checked for leaks and such - but found none - very lucky. By now, the sun was just starting to come up, so after a quick conversation with them to make sure all was well we headed back to our boat to resume our journey to Green Turtle Cay, where we would check into the Bahamas.
We did not take photos of the event - thought that would be a bit inconsiderate -and in all honesty, grabbing a camera when we went to help did not cross our minds.
The guys were very grateful, and offered to pay us a way too large sum of money, which we declined - telling them to just pay the favor forward - but they persisted, so eventually we took $150 from them to treat ourselves to a nice meal out. We would have preferred to meet them for a lunch, but they had a tight schedule, and were flying out the next day, and needed to move further than we wanted to got that day.
We checked in at Green Turtle Cay, and then went and anchored at Manjack Cay, and spent the rest of the day in our normal - after overnighter stupor, of napping and relaxing.
Manjack is a nice island, with some nice trails to ocean side beach, an Art Trail, where people can make items to place on the trail, and a nice mangrove lined inlet, where there are a lot of turtles and rays. We explored them all over the next three days. We sat on the boat a couple of days as there was a windy weather pattern coming through and this was a nice protected anchorage.
 |
| Saw several turtles |
 |
| Nice sunny day |
 |
| Nice ray, we disturbed his/her hunting. |
The Art Trail is made of art that people make from washed up garbage they find on the beach for the most part. We can appreciate the talent of these folks, as there were several very creative nice items.
 |
| Great fish. - Says "Fishing from Plastic" on it |
 |
| Cute use of old floats |
 |
| Good one - kind of creepy looking - old float, nets and line |
 |
| Someone has some carving talent |
 |
| Who does this look like? |
 |
| Pretty creative work |
 |
| Does anyone else see a resemblance here? |
The winds built, so spent a couple of boat days, just relaxing, reading books, and Kris conquered a video game she was playing with Deans help.
Took another nice walk to the ocean beach when winds died a bit.
 |
| Nice trail to beach |
 |
| Beach at anchorage |
 |
| Beautiful water color, white sand beach - picture perfect |
We will head out today, to go visit some friends we met last year, who have a house on Scotland Cay.
