Moving Southeast

We stayed in Lucaya for four nights and then had a good weather window to move further southeast. We left Lucaya on Tuesday morning around 10 AM. We were heading for Royal Island which is 120 miles away at the northwestern tip of Eleuthera Island. We knew that there was going to be a strong cold front coming thru on Christmas day and we wanted all around protection. There is an anchorage on the south side of Royal Island with a small inlet to get in which gives good protection. On the sail over we had mostly light winds which kept the seas down to 2-3 feet. We were in the lee of Grand Bahama Island and then Great Abaco Island which blocked the north Atlantic swell. There was an area of about 25 miles where we had no protection from the swell and we saw an average of a six foot swell with an occasional ten footer with a period of about 10 seconds. There really wasn't much wind driven waves so the ride was pretty comfortable.

We arrived Wednesday morning around 8 AM and settled into the anchorage. Once getting the hook down we took some naps to catch up on the sleep we missed during the night. There were two other sailboats in the anchorage when we arrived and later that day four trawlers came in.

Watching the weather further it appeared that the cold front was really going to be worse than first predicted so we moved to a slip at Spanish Wells which is a settlement (town) just seven miles to the east of Royal Island. Spanish Wells is on St. Georges Cay. The population here is a little different than other islands in the Bahamas. They are decendents of some British and American loyalists from around the revolutionary time period. There accent is different from the rest of the Bahamian people also. Most of the money on the island comes from lobster fishing. This is where Red Lobster gets all of it's lobsters.

They celebrate Christmas in a similar manner that we do the Fourth of July. There were games and races for the kids in the park and fireworks being shot off everywhere. We went to a fireworks show on the beach at the western end of the island at midnight. Very different custom than what we are accustomed too.

We will be here through the cold front and hopefully be moving south to the northern Exumas sometime mid next week. We won't have very good internet access from here on so postings may be sparse. Merry Christmas to all.

Bahamas!!

Just a quick post to let y'all know we made it to the Bahamas. We Left Vero Beach on Wednesday with 30 degree temperatures and went down the ICW to Jensen Beach. On Thursday we continued down the ICW and went right out the Lake Worth inlet at 4:40 PM. The winds were initially higher than forecast and the seas were somewhat choppy with 3-4 foot seas. Once we got out about 10 miles the seas calmed down and so did the wind. We had a south wind about 8-12 all night and seas were 1-2 with swells and no real chop. The gulf stream was pleasantly pleasantly smooth and it was an east crossing.

We pulled into the Grand Bahama Yacht Club in Lucaya, Grand Bahama about 10:00 AM so it was a 24 hour run. We refueled and checked in with immigration and customs which took about an hour.

Now it is time for a nap. I will post more with photos as we continue down the Bahamas island chain.