Sailing Ohana

We grabbed a mooring ball at Emerald Rock, instead of going to the area where we had the Great Mooring Ball Fiasco of 2022 (see “Exumas Land and Sea Park Adventures” from last season). It has several snorkeling spots in the bay, and it’s close to Whale Beach and the Land and Sea Park headquarters.…

It was lovely to be back on Shroud Cay, since we have only been to new places so far this season. We spent a some time on Shroud last season, but it was during a “blow”, so we didn’t get to do the big attraction, an area called The Rapids, or the Washing Machine. It’s…

Our weather and wind predictive apps showed that we would have small, frequent waves and wind about 20°-30° off our nose on our trip to Allen’s Cay in the Exumas. That’s not great, but it could definitely be worse, and we really wanted to get to the Exumas. We were going past Nassau, so we…

Tommy has a hard time waiting around. Anyone who knows him knows this, so you would think I would have seen it coming. We planned to leave on Tuesday “at sunrise” so that we could arrive in the Bahamas on Wednesday “at sunrise”, because we didn’t want to arrive and anchor or navigate a marina…

We returned to the US from the Bahamas in May of 2022, intending to sell the boat and return to life on land, with some wonderful memories and new perspectives. However, the universe had other things in store for us. After two failed sale contracts on the boat, she was struck by lightning at the…

Our trip home was looooooong, but had some great fishing success. We actually caught two tunas the first day, and got another little skipjack tuna after that which was so young that we released him. When we caught the tunas they hit at the same time, so we assumed they were mahi mahi. Everyone was…

We awoke early on our last day in the Bahamas, and all moved with a slow and steady purpose, knowing that it was a big day, and we were conscious of the emotional weight it carried. Tommy and I took Morris ashore for a long walk, and returned to the boat where the boys and…

We had a short sail with Grace up to Great Guana, where Ripple was anchored and awaiting our arrival. On our way there, we analyzed the weather forecast over and over, coming to terms with the fact that our weather window would force us to leave several days before we really wanted to. We had…

Since we had gone a couple of weeks without filling our water tanks and we were running low on perishables, we were looking forward to a stop in Hopetown. I called the marina to see if they had a slip for us, but it sounded like they did not. It was hard to understand the…

We left early in the morning for Lynyard Cay, knowing that the crossing from Spanish Wells to the Abacos would be uncomfortable and that the weather was supposed to be better earlier in the day. It was definitely bumpy but tolerable, and the boys just went back to bed after they had breakfast. The waves…