Hawksbill, Highbourne, Twin Sisters, Traveling Soul, Blue Bloods and Blue Boat Buddies. All this fun initial stuff was too humorous to pass up. And I know it’s the sort of thing that’s funny/cute to those involved and not so much to y’all out there. But it’s worth it for the great photos, right?

With a forecast that included wind speeds greater than 20 with higher gusts, rain and chance of thunderstorms… ah you get the picture. We hunker down. Twins is such a lightweight and even though she doesn’t show much of a waterline that’s not enough weight to make her as stable as larger, heavier sail cats or motor yachts. Remember too, we met our March 20 goal, so no rush now.

The trip Hawksbill would be 21 nm. We raised anchor, reluctantly, after Russ finished his death-defying paddle and made the trip in 2 ½ hours.  We chose Hawksbill because it offered options. Mooring balls in two places and close-in anchoring if you so choose. The reason Park provides moorings (at $20 and up) is to protect the sea floor from damage to small coral and other living things. Except for the North field at Warderick Wells, anchoring is allowed but keep away from the location’s mooring field.

Meeting up with boat friends when cruising aimlessly about the Bahamas, is best done by chance, luck and tweaking your plans just a tad to make it happen. So when we heard that Traveling Soul would not be tracking down Christopher Columbus’s stops, but heading north up the chain, perhaps a meet-up would happen.

Not only did they show up, but we had a little surprise…. visitor that is.

 

Later, while still calm on Thursday, Russ does his thing.

 

We went in to the beach to pay our fee. There’s a sign and a secure box where you deposit an envelope with your $$ and write your info on the envelope.

Russ got creative to catch the dripping water. Mostly this doesn’t happen, but today it did.

On windy, rainy days we tackle projects and things like the blog and such. Happy hour on Traveling Soul the first night and a delicious Shrimp Creole dinner the second; what’s not to love? Toss in five seasons of Blue Bloods and we are happy on all fronts. Good times with good friends and sniffy kisses from Spot; life is good. We are blessed. What bad weather? We got the dinghy down and back up without incident- whew- good to know we haven’t become too wimpy.

Saturday, 3/25, we moved around the corner to the more northern anchorage at Hawksbill, which was even calmer than the place we left. Easy shore access and we climbed up the path in a futile attempt to gain cell service. The Staniel tower doesn’t this far north and the Highbourne tower isn’t very strong, sooo, we were without for days. Survived this too. 🙂  Met the folks on the sail cat anchored nearby; they are headed south. March can be busy with boats moving in both directions.

Our next stop (that I’m writing about) is Highbourne Cay- another HB. In the right conditions we like to avoid the marina and instead anchor off and go in for lunch and raid the expensive small grocery store. Oh and fuel too. Fill ‘er up – should last until Florida.  Our BBB likes to be here too. Something about being anchored right under the cell tower.

 

The light bulb went on and Russ said, “why not jump out to fish since we are moving up a few miles anyway?” So we did and caught nada. Out Highbourne Cut (a new one for us) and back in over the top of Highbourne which is so wide (watch the rocks) that you can’t call it a cut. We did cut below SW Allen’s Cay which sits above Allen’s and Leaf Cay on our way to anchor in the lee of Allen’s Cay to get a jump on the next day’s 70-plus mile trip to the Berry Islands.

The current runs strong through here and you can see the gurgling water as evidence of that. Boats swing with the current and today was a good day to be here to see the iguanas because the current ruled with no fight from the wind. Click to see when we stopped here years ago.

Wednesday bright and early we’d head off and you will learn about BBB as we head past Nassau to B in B. Yep, I’m getting tired… trying to use up Bahamas cell data before we cross back.