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.
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| Lynyard Cay east side in strong East winds and swell |
We moved south, stopped at Powell Cay, and had a nice time. Walked to beach on east side. Very pretty beach.
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| East side of beach. Not much trash here |
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.
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| Sailing from West End to Great Sale Cay |
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.
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| Osprey with fish |
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| Motor-sailing with jib |
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| Swiss chalet style seems out of place in Florida |
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| One of the many bridges that we had to have open for us |
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| Some fancier homes the further south we go |
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| Probably only a 3 bed 2 bath :) |
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.
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.
