Sunday May 12: West End - The Plan: Cross Tomorrow to Florida!

We waved so long to Randy and Cindy as we pulled out of Orchid Bay Marina on Tuesday morning with a destination of Black Sound on Green Turtle Cay.

Crossing through the Whale passage (which can be downright dangerous under the wrong circumstances) was a non issue for us. Fairly high winds were due in the next day so we decided to just stay at Donny's Marina a couple of days.

Steve walked the advertised '10 minute walk' to town in what he thought was more like 20 minutes! Of course :-)

Lots of no-see-ums in this area. I'm thinking it's the mangroves which are all along the shore! First time we've encountered them during the day like that. Let's hear it for air-conditioning :-)

And of course a change of plans! Wendesday ended up being a beautiful day with low winds until the evening so we left Donny's and headed out to Manjack Cay - a short 7 miles away.

We tried the ocean side to see if we could find some coral heads for Steve to snorkel around but it just wasn't calm enough sadly.

The anchorage here didn't look that great given the winds that were coming in so we decided to just continue on 20 miles to Crab Cay. This was a nice place that we stopped at on the way in a month ago.

It would be perfect for the East winds that were due in for a few days.

Crab Cay is marked at the east end of the orange line. We are headed back to the West End and then to Florida and so are basically reversing our path from last month.

Again, plans change. The 2 nights at Crab Cay turned into one night and then on to Great Sale Cay. It's now Thursday morning and it looks like Sunday may be a possible crossing day so instead of staying a second day we just headed out the 46 miles to Great Sale Cay.

Somehow the rains followed with us most of the day. It wasn't always raining but I was VERY glad once again that we had a covered flybridge with 3/4 plastic around it :-)





Steve of course thought that fishing as we passed by Great Sale Cay on the way to our anchorage would be a good idea.

And of course he was right! A very nice cero mackerel which ended up being dinner :-)

Once again a combined effort: he puts the pole out, I hear the line spooling out and he reels the fish in :-)

And of course he cooks it :-) The type of fish is great if it's fresh and I don't think it gets much fresher that it was that night !!



It was an early morning leave time of 7:15 as it was going to be a long 8 hour day of 55 miles from Great Sale to the West End on Friday. We just didn't know it was going to be SUCH a long day ....

The sunrise should have given it away - that and the 6 inches of rain overnight!!

The start of the day on Friday - this was the good part of the day!                                                  

So for the next 7 1/2 hours the rain followed us again. Just when we thought it was going to turn sunny, another dark cloud would come and dump more rain. All day long. It was crazy.

The worst was when we were in sight of the West End and the rumbling of thunder was heard! Not one of my favorite places to be in a thunderstorm: out on the water in the middle of nowhere!!

Fortunately we just barely made it in - with rain but no lightning :-)

That was Friday and now it's Sunday. This yacht came in just before we did. Talk about nice!!

So we've spent a couple of days enjoying the area here. Steve of course snorkeled around for the past two days as well as doing a bit of work on the boat.

But tomorrow looks like the day. We plan to leave at 6 am and head for Palm Beach. It'll be a 9 - 10 hour trip depending on how the winds end up blowing. Looks like 2 foot waves so hopefully that will hold :-)

Steve did take a ride into town yesterday: the conch salad stand was still there - but not open.

There are still a ton of conch shells sitting around so we think the guy is still in business but who knows .......