If all goes according to plan, we hope to arrive at North Rock just north of Bimini tomorrow evening around 1900 hours, cross 'The Banks' overnight, and then sail to Nassau across 'The Tongue of the Ocean' on Saturday arriving late Saturday evening in Nassau where we'll need to check in and get fuel. From there, hope to take advantage of Northerly winds on Sunday and begin sailing South in The Exumas towards Georgetown which is our destination. We hope to be there by New Year's but who knows. One moment at a time. Here are some photos taken this past week in Miami. The sound of conch horns fill the air (a Bahemian tradition at sunset) as I type this.
We had a wonderful week with our friends Bob and Gail on 'Star',a Bristol 41 from Annapolis. On Monday evening we went to a chamber music concert of fellows from The New World Symphony in Miami. It is a three-year graduate internship program.
On Wednesday, we headed south to Biscaine Bay in prepartion for a weather window that is predicted to open tomorrow. It was our first opportunity to sail so it was good to be able to check the rigging before we head out onto the ocean tomorrow.
We had East winds of 15 knotts as we left Miami in the distance.
What does life look like on-board?
We love our cockpit enclosure which was custom made for our boat by Genco Marine in Toronto. You can see our yellow Winslow life raft on the foredeck and our gerry cans for extra water on starboard.
We have a Katadyn water maker which makes 1.3 gallons of r/o water per hour and a built-in water tank that holds 12 gallons. We also have a charcoal water filter. We fill up the gerry cans when we have access to water from shore. This gives us 15 extra gallons for a total of 28 gallons when the water maker is working and we have enough power to run it. And of course, we only uses the water maker when we're off-shore in order that we avoid the chemical hazards found in harbours that might make their way through the water maker's membrane. We do our best to live on less than five gallons of water per day including showers and cleaning the boat. Of course, we also have raw water.
Below deck, we're quite the picture! What would normally be a sea berth on starboard is storage made possible with a lee cloth. You can see our daily supply of whole food supplements on the starboard ledge and the propane fireplace which kept us warm on our way South in 2004 on the bulkhead.
I need to renew my friendship with the wind and differentiate between cold and windy. The hat that I seem to wear 24 hours of the day keeps my hair out of my face.
Rusty has his own boat bed which snaps onto six different places in the cockpit when we sail in any significant weather. He also has a tether for rough weather. If I could only be as calm as Rusty when the unexpected happens. He's amazing...
And then there's Dave...thank goodness for Dave! He's a wonderful sailor, terrific with weather, incredible when it comes to fixing things, the reason I'm experiencing all of this, and the love of my life!
This is where we're currently anchored. One of these houses was previously owned by Richard Nixon.
This was last night's sunset.
Tomorrow, we plan to make our way 'round Cape Florida, just south of here and out into The Florida Strait to cross The Gulf Stream to The Bahamas.
You can see what is called 'Stiltsville' in the distance. People actually live there! We each create our own lives.
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