It rained most of the night I got up around 3:15 am and realized I left one of our side windows opened. Good thing it wasn’t one of the windows above ups upholstery. I wiped up the floor and countertop and went back to bed.
9:30 am- Left our mooring. As we head towards the Abacos, you can already see some of the damage from Hurricane Dorian. Trees are stripped down to their branches and just starting to grow back.
Not sure if it is because of the dark clouds but it feels very eerie and total different atmosphere than other years. Even the cruiser’s net broadcasted from Hopetown was very brief and not much heard from anyone. It might also be because of the virus threat. Abacos surely does not need Covid19 on top of just trying to recover from Dorian. 11:30am- Went to get fuel at the Abaco Boat Harbour Marina. Right now it is the only place where you can drive your boat to get fuel in the Abacos. The guy was telling us that is it a good thing we are fueling today because the Bahamian government is shutting down again from Wednesday until Tuesday. He said the government knows how Bahamian people love to celebrate Easter and therefore doesn’t want any partying or gathering in order to control Covid.
They have all new docks at the fuel dock. Lots of reconstruction.
Because everything is shutting down, we decided to speed things up. We called Riverside Marina in Florida and they can haul us out Thursday or Friday and there is a storage unit available. They do not want us to stay on our boat therefore that would mean unpacking everything in one day. Again, we are taking a deep breath and taking it one day at a time.
1:00 pm- We are going 6 knots with one sail. The decision is whether we cross the Whales. It can be a very bumpy ride. We will decide as we get closer.
We could see Hopetown lighthouse from a distance and some of the devastation along Man O War.
2:00 pm- As we approached the Whale passage we decided to cross. What excitement. It was wild.
The swells were building though the cut at 15 ft and they would pick up the stern of the boat and we would be surfing at 10 knots until the next one came. With the cut only being 90 ft wide and 20 ft wide with the reef on both side, it was nerve racking. We were lucky that the wind was veered south otherwise we would have not made it. We did a big high five at the end.
We passed Green Turtle Cay, Crab Cay and anchored at Manjack Cay around 5:00 pm. We covered 40.83 nm today. It was sad to see so such devastation throughout the Abacos due to DORIAN. we use passed through since we know they are trying to rebuild and still have no power and use generators for power.
In preparation for our long 2 days journey to the States, I prepared food to eat along the way. I may not be able to update my blog during this time.
The plan is to be in Florida Wednesday afternoon so we can get hauled out Thursday or Friday.
Bahamas is forcing us out with the long shut downs.
We always felt like we have been outside the bubble of the Covid19 and now we have to break in. Not looking forward to it.
My neighbour is kind enough to do groceries for us and have it in our home before we get there seing that we will be on a 2 week quarantine.
6:30pm- Dinner tonight is Chicken and potatoes cooked in a Catalina cranberry sauce with yellow canned beans.
Watched a couple of episodes of Ozark before going to bed.
Better get to bed early since 4am comes quick
Safe trip home. Call when you get settled. Love you
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