SUMMER BREEZE: May 5, Cinco de Mayo, KY Derby weekend, and Bahamas, here we come!

We left the anchorage in Lake Worth at 4:45 AM. It was pretty pitch dark but enough lights coming off other boats and homes nearby that we could see ok, until we got to the inlet where all we could see was black, having to totally depend on our chart plotter to make it past the jetties.

Sea Sick Patches on, ocean inflatable life vests on, ditch bag - EPIRB prepped, snack meals prepped, items that may fly around inside laid down, tied up or put away. The seas were very calm, barely 1 footers for a long time and we were grateful.

About half way through, the seas kicked up a bit, definitely 2-4s and then we had some bigger ones and learned that we did NOT secure the interior enough. No real casualties but a lot of mess to clean up, with the open bottle of chili oil that spilled over the floor when the frig doors flew open. 😒 So we learned a few more lessons about securing items down below. Oh well.

And, we were very happy that we didn't "miss" the island! Thank you God and our chart plotters!

We arrived at Old Bahama Bay Marina about 3 in the afternoon along with a long trail of other boats, mostly huge, HUGE yachts and large fishing boats. We were assigned a narrow slip so the docking provided a bit of entertainment but we had 2 great dock hands and 3 fellow cruisers helping.

We enjoyed an appetizer of conch salad on Summer Breeze and then grouper and snapper at the restaurant. Some local fishermen came by selling their daily catch of lobster (not in season and I didn’t ask) and conch already cleaned, which will be dinner tomorrow night at Great Sale Cay

61.1 miles

Total 569.4

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May 6, Monday

Left Old Bahama Bay Marina at 10 am after a much needed rest. Our slip departure was picture perfect, unlike our arrival yesterday. We found the unmarked Indian Cay Cut and cruised across the Bahama bank in beautiful greens and teal water.

We had great WiFi with our Island WiFi system but this area is too far away from any towers to pick up. So we are without WiFi till we go further east.

Arrived at Great Sale Cay at 5:30pm anchoring with 9 other vessels and more coming in.

Bruce jumped into the clear green teal water to cool off and check the anchor. We are accustomed to anchoring in mud not hard sand or grass. A new learning experience coming up for us! His 1st swim was in the company of a barracuda and a large turtle.

Dinner was a salad from our garden on board, fresh lobster, cracked conch and a great bottle of wine gifted to us from James and Beverly.

Miles 53.4

Total miles 622.8

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May 7, Tuesday

It started to rain last night during our dinner and we have had thunderstorms rolling by us since about 3 am. We were looking forward to getting through the Bahama Bank and to the Abacos where we can pick up WiFi again but as of this morning, there are storms still rolling through. Our SirusXM weather station is showing an occluded front and it appears to be sitting right on top of us.