Northing

We had three days of excellent sailing. Sometimes cruising is like that. Lot's of times it isn't. When we get these days we enjoy them immensely. Yesterday we sailed about thrity miles to get twenty. We could have motored straight there but we are a friggin sailboat after all, so we sailed. It was great. We set the sails and auto pilot then trimmed to the wind when required. We talked a bit, sometims taking turns to read a book or nap. There is always someone on watch. We broad reached right up to our anchorage.

Today we were worried about the cut we had to go through. We were leaving close to max ebb current and the wind was not directly against the current but close enough to make us sweat about it. We had already been through one rage and did not want to start the day with one. When we got to the cut is was a pussy cat. We rocketed out the cut at about 9.5 knots and then trimmed for close hauled sailing for thirty miles across the sound. At first it looked like we were the dumbest of the bunch today with big waves and wind on the nose. No wonder nobody else left today! As we got away from the shore the wind fell off a bit and we relaxed the sails a bit as well and man oh man did we fly. We were just off the wind enough, and the seas were not quite on the beam, and we took off.

Have you ever been out on the water and looked around and thought, why the hell are we the only people out here? Something we don't know about? Squalls? High winds? Krakken? Today was one of those days. All I can say is we were right and you jerks still at anchor were wrong baby! I know I know. Next outting I'll be screaming like a little girl.

Last afternoon at anchor Deb was considering going into the crystal blue water for a swim. Good for Deb. She rarely goes in. Neither one of us are big swimmers so it's a big event when I go in and it's a photo op of the year when Deb dives in. So Deb looks out at the water and says, "Oh my God it's a shark!". I hop to that side of the boat and lazily floating by next to our hull is a six foot shark. Deb says, "Well that ends any thoughts of going in the water!"
I agree. I do have to check the zincs so sometime soon I have to go in. We always think, what are the odds? But then you see one floating by the boat twice now in a month and well, it gets you thinking. Thinking about being a meal.

We can't complain much about the Bahamas. We sailed most of the time we were here. We are about as laid back as you can get right now. I wish there were more palm trees and the islands are pretty dry. I think we had maybe ten minutes of rain the whole time we've been here. The place is still beautiful and we are glad we got the chance to see most of it because next year we need to move fast.

We still have the Abacos to go through and yet here we are already planning for the fall. We still have some fun left in Eleuthera and some more cuts to go through. Maybe we will rage one more time. I hope not, but I'm beginning to think Deb likes it. We have a few days of lazy light wind sailing up the island before we think about crossing to the Abacos, which looks interesting, yet developed a lot more than the other islands. We may be there for a whole month so I hope it's somewhat enjoyable and not too much like Florida.

That's all I have for now. We've been boat bound so I have no stories of interesting people. Sooner or later a bar will serve me a cold one and then we'll just let the weirdo magnet do it's thing.

Cheers!
PB

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