Arrived in Bahamas!

4/2/13: Captain Tom wanted to leave last night and do a night crossing. It was a rolly 12 hours but we arrived as the sun was coming up. We are staying at a marina resort with beach & pool. Will upload pics later. We are safe and it was worth it! It was interesting today dealing with everyone on Island time and customs. We have been told the Abacos is much better than where we are so we are looking forward to it. Will not have wifi for a couple of days so next update then MON!

We

Waitng for our weather window

Thursday March 28th and Friday March 29th we stayed at Vero Beach Municipal Marina on a mooring. Excellent stop and we will plan to stay there on our return also. We went through many bridges to get to Palm Beach and needed to be very patient at times.

Saturday Night, March 30th we stayed on the anchor at Jensen Beach, a little rolly at first then the wind and waves calmed down for a restful sleep. We enjoyed our trip to North Palm Beach on Easter Sunday March 31st. We saw turtles, dolphins, eagles,etc. Plus many, many magnificent homes on the water. We stayed at North Palm Beach Marina at a dock and enjoyed our Easter dinner of ham & potato salad. Communicated with family & friends. We hoped to leave on Monday, but Kathy is not in favor of burying the rail today. Our decision was easy when the dockmaster offered us free night with power tonight since he needed us to move to another dock early this am. We had planned to anchor out tonight and cross the gulf stream tomorrow when the wind and seas calm down a little more. 

TOMKAT's on the move again!

Left Palm Coast Marina on Tuesday March 26th packed and ready to voyage to the Abacos Islands in the Bahamas. It is a very cold start heading down the Intercoastal waterway, 30 degrees on Tues. AM. By the time we hit Ponce de Leon Inlet it only warmed up to the low 60's. Very cold for "us floridian's"! Anchored Tuesday night in Rockhouse Creek near New Smyrna Beach.
Wednesday March 27th started off chilly but not as cold as yesterday. After passing Haulover Canal into the Indian River on the ICW we saw 2 manatees. Tom able to rest as we waited for a bridge near the Kennedy Space Center. We anchored for the night in Cocoa Beach.
Thursday March 28th The temperature is rising yeah! Seeing many dolphins and 1st day we were able to take our sweatshirts off. We passed a boat from CT "Imagine", Tom knew him from the Thames Yacht Club and they had a nice radio chat. South of Sebastian Inlet it became very pretty with the mangroves and eye popping waterfront homes. Enroute to Vero Beach we saw many nesting ospreys also.

We will moor at Vero beach for 2 nights and head to Lake Worth (Palm Beach) to wait for our weather window to cross the gulf stream to the Bahamas.

10/14/12: We reached our milestone of Myrtle Beach, S.C. this evening. We are at Mile 346 on the ICW. We were going to stay in Southport, but arrived early after an early morning start and favorable weather & current. We are at Coquina Yacht Club which is very nice & so much better than we expected.They have some noisy shrimp here but not like Morehead City! We had an exciting dolphin show today with one jumping up high out of the water. I can never get great shots of them as they are so quick. Time to rest and take care of some business. We will resume this blog in about a month when we get underway again. We will continue to upload pics to previous blog posts.

10/13/12: Left Camp LeJeune intact and headed to Wrightsville Beach. We needed to wait for 2 bridges which was uneventful. We went thru some very shallow areas and did 2 soft groundings which we were able to rock off pretty easy. On one the bow pitched downward which was a little unnerving. We were able to anchor in Wrightsville Beach right near the Masonboro Inlet. The current & wind are opposing and we are twirling around on our anchor.....our favorite! It's humming out there..had to cook with the slats in to keep stove lit. This will be a restless night & early start in the morning. Mile #285. It looks very beachy here. Even though it's in the 60's this evening we can tell we are in the South now. We will not complain about being chilly since we were told it was 27 degrees in CT today. Now that's cold!

10/12/12: Kellee & Chris helped us shove off the dock with hugs & lines. . :-). We left Mile #205 in Morehead City. We had some shallow areas on our way, but thankfully no groundings. We had a boat northbound warn us they had one. We saw dolphins again, still not getting old! We were perfect for bridge opening and anchored in Mile Hammock Bay around 4pm. Mile 244.5 .This bay is used by Camp LeJeune for military maneuvers. Several boats here now. Sometimes the military has had boaters leave or made them part of their ops! Hopefully we'll have none of that tonight. Very pretty anchorage though. Shoreline is restricted. Time to make homemade beef stew since the evenings are a little chilly now.

10/11/12: Left Oriental along with Navigator after a hearty pancake, bacon, homefries & orange cranberry scone breakfast! We are both headed to Beaufort/ Morehead City area. We encountered a couple of pods of dolphins! Love it! Tom worries I'm going to fall in the drink I get so excited every time! We were able to get a dock with Navigator at Dockside Marina. We will head out in the AM; reluctantly leaving Kellee & Chris as they head in a different direction. We hope to make our next milestone of Myrtle Beach in about a week. We all went to Sammy's for dinner that was awesome. Lots of places to explore....too little time. Just may need to come back!