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.

Vero Beach - Manta meet up

 Vero Beach, FL, is often referred to as Velcro Beach for us cruisers, and for good reason.  Lots of stores, that are convenient to get to with a free bus, protected spot - reasonable moorings.

We only stopped for 6 nights, but had a lot of fun.

We got to spend some time with our friends on Sojourn.  We had a couple of days of shopping, and one memorable lunch where we bought Burger King Impossible Burgers, which we took across the street to McDonalds, and ate them with McDonalds fries and drinks.   Best of both worlds.

Titusville to Vero Beach

 After a rough night of choppy seas anchored in Titusville, we decided we could do better, so headed south, after picking up packages from an Amazon hub in Titusville.

We wanted to stop in Cocoa, as there is a large interesting hardware store there, and a free dock, but the winds decided otherwise for us, so instead a new anchorage for us south of the Eau Gallie bridge near the town of Indian Harbor Beach, FL.   It ended up being a good stop, with a nice dinghy dock, and easy walk to the important stuff of a WalMart, McDonalds and Publix grocery store.   

We survived the NorEaster - spent good time in St. Augustine

 Well, we survived the NorEaster, and other than having to re-anchor in a downpour once, we did just fine.

Good sail down the coast and now for some wet and windy weather.

We had a good sail down the coast.  Wind mostly from directly aft, which is a great ride for a catamaran.  Winds were 15 knots to start - so wing on wing, and then when then winds lightened, we flew our spinnaker most the night.  Early morning had a shackle failure, so back on wing on wing, so a little slower, but it all worked out well.

Had some dolphins visit on the trip, which is always great.

We pulled into Fernandina Beach for a day and a half, and then headed south to the St. Augustine area find a protected anchorage for the next few days.

It looks like the weather report for St. Augustine FL is going to be wet and windy for the next couple of days.  The area has a small craft advisory and flooding warnings out.  Hard to read, but about 5" of rain in the next 24 hours, and winds up to 25 knots, with locally higher gusts expected.   YUCK.

 

We saw the forecast and yesterday moved to an anchorage (red spot) we hoped would be better than the one we had at Fernandina Beach.  There are 5 other boats in this area thinking the same thing, will let you know on Sunday if we made a good decision or not :)   (we are at the red dot)     

Break out the movies and inside project list.