Kite Surfing here in Port Lucaya

Spent the day with my neighbor, Mass here in the Bahamas kite surfing. See my video from youtube here.

Florida to the Bahamas

I had a VERY salty sail crossing the gulf stream.

The brown line shows my float plan and the green line my 190 nautical mile journey. I left at 11am on Monday and arrived here at Port Lucaya at 5pm Tuesday giving me an average of 6 knots mainly courtesy of the gulf stream. I used my engine 3 times: once to help pull up the anchor, second for 3 hours to head more into the wind at Tennessee Reef (to stay in 100 feet depth to be clear of crab/lobster pots) and finally the last 4 hours to get into Harbor before dark after the wind died.
Saying farewell to my crew.

Customary dolphin escort out of the harbor.

Entering Port Lucaya showing my quarantine flag.

Tied up at Flamingo Marina and Resort at Taino Beach.

I did catch a couple of crab pot lines on my windvane paddle, south east of Long Key, but fortunately they fell off after a minute or so. Winds were 25 knots SE and seas were 10' with a 9 second interval so every 10 minutes I would get several buckets of green water in the cockpit to keep me awake during the night. Everything got wet both outside and inside the boat despite the boat being shut up tight so today I am drying cushions, bedding, shoes and even electronics! Yikes! I sailed the entire way with just my staysail and one reef in the main fortunately, so i didnt have to move around the boat very much. I got one very bad squall on Tuesday morning for about an hour of 40 knots and torrential rain where I just let my mainsail flog. Fortunately my monitor windvane handled the situation with ease. Phew! Needless to say I had 14 hours of sleep last night.
Last year I saw most of the Bahamas, but this year I hope to stay put for a month to just chill and enjoy this place.

Leaving for the Bahamas

Am leaving Islamorada this morning for the Bahamas and I hope to be in Freeport on Wednesday morning all going well.

The sea has 6' waves with a very uncomfortable 6 second period but I am hoping for the weather to moderate tonight.

Bottom cleaning

Today I got Diver Dom here in Islamorada to clean the bottom of the boat.

He did an excellent job and it cost me $60. My boat should get an extra knot or so now.
Last night I had my first experience of being boarded by the authorities. It was a coast guard vessel but it had different agencies on it.

It was not the best experience because they seem to have unfairly targeted us, but it is what it is.
Here is the view from the Lorelei restaurant tonight.

Islamorada

We upped anchor this morning and headed the 5 nautical miles around the corner to the less protected Anchorage of Islamorada. We rowed ashore and headed to Lorelei Restaurant for a late lunch.

This place has a library, post office, grocery store, Miami Dade bus stop, Hardware store, gas station that sells ethanol free gas, great restaurants and most importantly, a laundromat all within walking distance of the dinghy dock. BTW the only other laundromat we have found here in the Keys is way down in Key West. The other glaring lack here in the Keys is broadcast television. Every other Port I am at I can usually pick up ABC or at least HSN.

Bahia Honda to Lignumvitae Key

Yesterday, we made the most of the nice weather to move up the Keys towards Islamorada.

There is a State park here at Lignumvitae, but it is closed today, so we are suffering cabin fever in very windy conditions. We did stop off at Sombrero Reef on the way here for some snorkeling and the video is below.

Phantom Drone

I was so excited today when our neighbor Craig brought his drone over to my boat.

He took a great photo of the boat

He also managed to get a photo of the beached boat next to us.

And finally we visited Marathon this afternoon and had a delicious Lobster Ruben sandwich.

Burial of a boat

Today we helped unload the beached boat.

We took the mast down in about 20 minutes.

Here's a movie of several video clips we took of the day.

A hard lesson learned

The winds were predicted to swing out of the north here at Bahia Honda and turn the Anchorage into a Lee shore so we took shelter inside the marina. Lucky we did because the wind got up to gale force and several boats dragged including the boat anchored next to us.

At first glance it looks OK but this is actually an impossible situation to be in for the boat. If the boat stays there it will beat itself to death and if it is towed out, its hull will be breached on the rocks and it will sink. So the state of Florida is getting involved, to decide where they want the boat sunk.

There by the grace of God go I.