Day 143, Tuesday November 12th

Day 143, Tuesday November12th

We are up about 5:30 and check the weather.  Looks like we are trapped here for a week if we don’t move today.  Dawson wanted to get the prop issue sorted out before we go, but decides we can move on and get is dealt with in the Abacos.  Julie is pleased as Ruth is also flying into Marsh Harbour on the Abacos on the 18^th and it is important for us to be there to meet the plane.

By 6:15 we are leaving the docks.  Dawson has not settled up our bill, however left them a credit card number so they will be able to charge us.  We can’t wait until they open as we would then be arriving after nightfall to the Abacos.   It is about a 10-12 hour  crossing and that is all the daylight we have.  Dawson had tried to pay them the night before, but they wanted to settle up once we were sure how long we were staying.

As we are pulling out of the channel Rob spots a shark milling about in the lagoon alongside the channel.  This is a bit intimidating.  We don’t like sharks.  The movie Jaws has really ruined saltwater swimming for our generation.  We cross the shallow bay fine and soon are out into the deep water again.  There is little wind, but we are able to pull out the jib to help keep our speed up.  Later in the day the winds rise a bit and a rain shower comes along to rinse everything off.  For the first time, Julie collects a pail of rainwater to use for dishes.  If our watermaker is not fixable, we will be doing more of that.  We can buy water here at the marina’s too if needed. 

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One thing about the trip is the intense blue colours.  We went from 8 foot to 20 foot to 695 to 2095 depth in a very short while.  The really deep waters are such a rich indigo colour it is amazing.  Then a sky blue, and a sea foam green.  It took us about 9 hours to get between the Eleuthra Island and over to the cut at the Abacos.  We then had another 2 hours in 8 foot water depths to get to our anchorage for the night.  With only about an half hour of daylight to spare we celebrated our arrival in the Abacos, as that was supposed to be our landing spot on our crossing.  We are now only about 10 miles from Marsh Harbour which hosts the airstrip our crew is flying out of in a couple of days.