THIS IS US

We are "stranded" in the Bahamas and enjoying our secluded life with another boat from Canada too. We have visited Musha Cay and the beautiful sandbars there and now we are down at Lee Stocking Island. 

The above are the gorgeous sandbars at Musha Cay (psst, David Copperfield owns the island). The sand dollars came from the sandbars. Dozens and dozens!

We saw a few swimming turtles and this ray! This is a beautiful place for sea life.

One of many caves I encounter while I paddle board along the shore.

Last November we installed underwater lights, they are fantastic and attract all kinds of creatures at night.

These conch shells are the leftovers after someone else took the insides out..... to eat! They are pretty.

We will continue to be floating down here

WE ARE HERE AND NOT THERE

Interesting title? I didn't know what to call this post I just know that we are happy to be here and not anywhere else. With the Corona Virus spreading around the world, we are in the best place, on our boat Time Out and with very limited socializing. We have all we need for months. Now we enjoy our time down here and wait.

While we waited for bad weather to pass outside of Nassau, we had a little glitch on the tilt for our motor of our dinghy. LITTLE is the word, a very small wire was corroding to nothing! Paul had to find the problem as we need the tilt in these shallow waters. See below the teeny wire. (please note this is a diary of sorts for us so I try to include minor annoyances on this blog)

We travelled to Nassau for one night and did a huge produce provisioning and got out of there as fast as we could. We spent two nights anchored at Norman's Cay. 

Interesting sky/sunset there one night. 

We are in Staniel Cay now but having no lunches out at restaurants. We were to have guests come on board for a time but of course with the world the way it is they had to cancel. We will socialize with other boaters that have been down here for awhile but at a distance. 

We took dinghy into Isles General Store to buy potatoes, tomatoes and apples. We don't really need anything but with us going to no  stores for a couple of months, thought should just squeeze in more produce. We are much safer down here in the Bahamas.

Our lithium batteries are FANTASTIC! We are making water, running the microwave, hair blower, coffee maker, and the AC in our stateroom (if need it but really haven't). We are so pleased and happy. Last year we ran the generator 2-3 hours a day to charge up everything and now we run less than 1 hour! This is outstanding. We can actually go days without the generator but I want to cook on stove top and we need the generator on for that on occasion. We have been gone 20 days and have run the generator 19 hours. Solar is great with the sun high up now.

       

With the bad weather outside of Nassau I painted some more rocks. I love giving them away or hiding them for someone to find.

As it stands now, Staniel Cay for a week then head south and again south! Explore these beautiful islands! This is the best quarantine we could ask for.

Everyone keep safe and healthy as we are thinking of you and our family. Skype is a great tool for our communication with grandchildren!

   

FORTY NINE BRIDGES

On Thursday February 27th we departed Vero Beach full of fuel, food and fun, happy faces! From Vero to Key Biscayne we have to go under or wait for an opening of 49 bridges. The days are long especially if we have to wait up to 30 minutes for a bridge to open for us. Night one anchoring was at Hobe Sound and the second was West Palm area. The weather was chilly, see Paul! We stayed 2 nights in Ft Lauderdale downtown. It is noisy and crowded but we needed to go and enjoy a couple of meals out before we leave. 

Mile markers of some of the Florida bridges. We keep track as some we can get under if our antennas are down. I keep notes to help us the following year. 

South of Miami we got fuel. This above photo shows how boats are stored. You are the owner, you call ahead and a forklift will bring your boat down and put in the water for you. I always find this amazing. 

Some cool watercraft sitting up on the boat lifts at houses in the canals here in Florida. Some like to go fast!!

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Tuesday we travelled to Bimini, we usually would not go out and cross the Gulf Stream when they say 2-3 foot waves BUT we have spent money and lots of time installing stabilizers. We turned them on and went through the Key Biscayne Cut. Yes, we know when they say 2-3 feet waves we are to add those numbers together and that is the real number out in the big big water. Yes, indeed there were some large ones out there. The stabilizers worked fine! See below the chart plotter. We want to go where the green line is but with waves, current and wind our boat had to travel and self correct and go in the direction of the red line. 

Bimini to Chub Cay is our longest day of 10 hours of actually nothing but blue waters 360. No islands, no land in view and actually no other boats in sight except little dots in the distance. We left at sunrise. Cool picture of that below as the humidity was 90% that morning. 

After travelling over 300 nautical miles from Vero Beach, we are now actually stuck outside of Nassau because of extreme high winds and waves. We are comfortable but "inside the boat" kind of days right now. It is very noisy and rocky outside on the decks. We have guests arriving mid-March so off to Exumas as soon as weather cooperates. 

Our view a couple of nights ago.
Yes, It's Better In The Bahamas. We are so grateful to be able to do this. We appreciate every day.