March-April 2007
As expected the weather was not very co-operative for our return to the north and east. We went north from the Exumas in fairly brisk seas across the Middle Bank, a flat, shallow sandbank covered with scattered coral heads just below the surface. The mate spent over two hours standing on the ‘granny bars’ by the mast peering ahead into the water. Our track was sinuous to say the least...
The seas were even heavier as we came out briefly into the deep water and then died again. We were stuck at Royal Island again waiting for better weather and then went back across the Atlantic to the Abacos as a great day sail under full canvas. The seas remained big but we had enough wind to make good progress without too much discomfort. We had worried about the reef passage at the end of the trip but it was just fine.

Buddy boat Misty sailing north with us from Eleuthera to the Abacos
The smaller of two Cero we caught on this trip - excellent eating with pale flesh
The medium tuna of the day awaiting cutting into steaks on deck. The baby was returned but we kept the bigger brother of this one later...
A house by the ICW in central Florida
And another...
And another...
And another...
Sunrise over Daytona Beach - we were up early to get through the bridges before they closed for rush hour

More strong winds had us sheltering from a cold front near Marsh Harbour but not for long. We reprovisioned and then went straight back to Manjack Cay to wait for a weather window to get back to Florida. One long day took us to Great Sale Cay and when the weather settled we had a brisk dead run under foresails to West End on Grand Bahama.
A great fishing day - 2 barracuda released (carefully), 3 lost lures and 2 good sized Cero mackerel. We shared these with John and Marla on Misty as they were having no luck.
The day ended with cocktails and supper out in the marina restaurant. Yum yum.

Manatees are very slow moving and graze on sea grass beds
They like to come and drink fresh water in large amounts when they can find it
They have a tail with a curved horizontal fin and have been likened to mermaids
We think they are magic!

The next day we headed back to West Palm Beach and Misty headed north for Brunswick in Georgia. It was sad to leave John and Marla but they intend some summer cruising with us later in the year and we will be back in the Bahamas in the winter.
Checking in again was very straightforward, especially as we found a marina birth where we could walk to the necessary offices. Legal again we sailed offshore to Fort Pierce and caught two excellent tuna and a baby one.

We have booked into the same marina in St Augustine for a month in April. This will allow us to catch up on a long list of maintenance tasks which accumulate as we cover more miles.
We will be visited by daughter Bridget and our grand daughter Aspen at the end of the month and we cannot wait to see what she is like.
We have been buying a Jeep to keep for our visits to Colorado and it looks like we have been successful in finding the right thing.
Today we were visited by a small manatee right by our boat in the marina. He or she came to drink from the fresh water hose - just amazing!

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