It is real now. It is just the three of us and the dogs enjoying boat life. Sadly, we put Mak and Ella on a plane in George Town, Bahamas on December 30th with the thought that we would stay and explore the area for a few days and then start sailing south. A few days turned into a few weeks. The winds became unsettled, blowing 25-35mph and we just had to wait it out.

It isn’t always fun and games. We had an electrical fire one night due to a loose screw. It took us a couple of days to find new wire and make the repairs.

After three weeks anchored just off Stocking Island, Exuma (George Town), we began to make our way southeast. We spent 4 days in Thompson’s Bay Long Island, Bahamas Jan 15-19.  We got to see an amazing natural wonder, Dean’s Blue Hole. You are just walking along the edge in knee deep water and then it drops straight down. It is 633 feet at the deepest spot. Something you really have to see to understand its beauty. 

January 18th. We had fun celebrating Addie’s 15th Birthday! It included lots of yummy food at Addie’s request – bacon, eggs, hash browns, and lemon muffins for breakfast and Shannon’s yummy fried rice and lo mein noodles for dinner.

We did our first sail into the night Jan 19-20. We traveled 110 NM from 7:00am to 2:00am. This was a test for Addie and Ashley as they had never sailed past sunset before much less into the night. We made it all the way into Abraham’s Bay at Mayaguana in the middle of the night without hitting a reef or any coral. Thank goodness for great charts. 

The winds picked up again so we spent January 20-26 just hanging out in Abraham’s Bay, Mayaguana, Bahamas. Mayaguan is the eastern most Bahamas island. We head out east in the Atlantic ocean from here and then turn south all the way to Puerto Rico. Mayaguana is the last place we can use our Bahamas money.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything to buy!

On the morning of January 27th we lifted anchor and set sail for Puerto Rico. The distance was 470 NM. The plan was to travel at an average speed of 5NM per hour, if we were lucky maybe 6NM per hour. We were ready for 4 days and nights of non-stop traveling. Winds were light and seas were calm for most of the trip so there was not much sailing – mostly motoring.

Our first 4-day passage from Bahamas to Puerto Rico was a success!

We hung out in Puerto Rice for about 4 days stocking up on provisions from the grocery store and some needed items at West Marine. We took some time to research our best cellular options, which becomes a very big deal once you head south from the Bahamas.

After a few days, we left Puerto Rico…

Aventis arriving in St. Thomas in the USVI where we met up with our friends Kent and Kathy Meredith on Wind Ensemble.

We spent the next few weeks exploring St. Thomas and St. John’s.

We spent the last week of February over in the British Virgin Islands. It was really neat to be there on our own boat and not have to always grab a mooring ball or feel like we were on a tight charter boat schedule. We visited some of our favorite places.

So, January and February were big months for us; we went two months without seeing Makenzie and Ella, which was really hard; we had our first overnight passage and our first multi-day passage; we had our first (and hopefully last, boat fire; and we were still figuring out how to be full time cruisers with a teenager and two dogs. We are absolutely having the time of our lives!

Coming Up Next Month:
Spring Breakers in the Virgin Islands (and Corona-pocalypse)