Woowee!! We just went under the Bay Bridge...on the home stretch

Had to show that Dan is alive and well and even doing the anchor chores.

We did pull out of River Dunes on Tuesday, June 7th, and made it to the bottom of the Alligator Pungo Canal.  We dropped anchor around 6:30 and cranked up the grill(it was pretty dusty!) and had burgers for dinner. Inspite of grassy islets all around the bugs were not bad at all, but the promised beach (from reports on Active Captain) didn't look very promising so Dory had to bite the bullet, but finally did use her "grassy spot" on the bow in the AM.

The sun was up before 6 so we headed up the canal, down the Alligator River and across Albemarle Sound (the promised 13 knots of wind turned out to be 22 knots at times), but we were on a reach, so it wasn't as bad as the Sound can be, we did have to dodge hundreds of traps tho.  We continued on up to Elizabeth City and took one of their free slips.  We arrived at 5:30 and were the second boat there. Another arrived about half an hour later, but no sign of the "rose people" who often greet cruisers. We definitely are behind the crowd.

Thursday morning we left at 6:30 and headed up the Pasquotank River towards the South Mills Lock. We didn't time it quite right and arrived at 9 am and had to wait for the 11:30 opening.  As we approached the lock I was on the bow and spied a mostly submerged log right in the middle of the river, so I got Dan to maneuver me around so I could push it with the boat hook to the side so others who  might not see it wouldn't hit it.  We then tied to the dolphins to wait for the lock to open.  As we started up and backed down away from the dolphins I saw "my" log had already found a pair of sun bathers.

My log is upper left, these are the other sights we saw as we made our way through the Dismal Swamp.  Roses
are in bloom everywhere along the banks of the river and the Swamp. The dragonfly helped me hold the bow line
as we were locking up to the Swamp. We hoped the fawn didn't scamper up the bank as Rt. 17 is visible right above
it's head.

Our trip through the Dismal Swamp we much bumpier than any of out previous trips. We arrived in plenty of time for the 3:30 opening at the north end of the swamp. When we mentioned it to the lock tender, Robert, at the Deep Creek Lock he told us the level never varies more than 5 inches and wasn't that low.  He suggested writing to the Army Corps of Engineers to get them to drag the bottom and clean up some of the sunken deadheads.  He also suggested that we could put our wait time for the Gilmerton Bridge(closed for commuter traffic until 5;30) to good use and get the cheapest fuel around at Top Rack Marina, so we called them and asked about fuel.  We then called to check of the Norfolk & Western RR bridge which was reportedly being worked on and wouldn't be open until 5 pm.  Dan was told the bridge was "broke" and probably wouldn't even open at 5! There's no other way out to the Chesapeake, so we called Top Rack back and asked if we could have a slip for the night.  They said yes, and the slip would be free if we at dinner in their restaurant.  DUH!  I think we can handle that!  Fuel was $1.83/gallon, and dinner was very good.  We ended up tying next to another C-400, Beauty.  Bryce and Jane Johnson brought her down the Mississippi from Michigan and had spent the winter in the Bahamas and are headed back up the Hudson/Erie route.

Brunelle and Beauty  at Top Rack Marina

The other thing Robert, the lock tender, told us was to watch out because this was the 400th anniversary of Norfolk and there were loads of events scheduled.  We called the RR bridge again and was told it was stuck in the up position, so when the commuter traffic on the Gilmerton was done we we good to go.  We left the dock at 9 am and worked our way through the maze of military and cargo vessels out toward the Newport News tunnel and as we turned the corner, there was a parade of vessels headed toward us.  We had a grandstand view and I kept snapping the camera.  Here is just a smattering of what we saw.

The smallest we saw was this hard had floating down the parade route.  The schooner "Virginia"

seemed to be the welcoming vessel.

Several ships representing several centuries of sail.  Some familiar some less so.

The Ara Liberdade  from Argentina carried up the rear, along with a LARGE container ship and a US submarine, escorted by Betty's favorite naval gun boats (inside joke from  our trip 5 years ago.)

We skirted around behind the sub, making sure to stay 500 yards away and headed up the bay.  As we do when we are going to be on an overnight passage, we send out our SPOT message to family and friends every 4 hours so they can track our progress.  Right after sending our 8 pm SPOT as we were approaching the southern edge of the mouth of the Potomac, we received an e-mail from Gerry Helldorfer alerting us to the fact that the Annapolis/Bermuda race started today and close to 30 boats would be passing us sometime during the night!!  Sorry no pictures, they were hard enough to see let alone try to get a picture.  From 11:30 until almost 2:30 we were on high alert watching for faint running lights!!  They were having to tack as the wind was basically from the south.  They also had to dodge several cargo vessel to boot.  We motorsailed on through the night and went under the Bay Bridge Saturday morning at 8 am.  We are approaching Swan Creek and our slip so I have to go help sort out dock lines as we didn't leave any when we left in October.  Good to be home!! ~~~_/)~~~M&D

Underway?!?! Hopefully

I wanted to wait until I had a picture to post, but sadly we've had nothing but rain since we got back to Brunelle and River Dunes.  We rented a car and drove back on Friday, June 3 with every intention to get underway by Sunday, but Colin happened and the rain took over.

Back home we dealt with Dan's back surgery on May 11th.  The doc fused one spot and decompressed three others, covering the whole lumbar section up to the thoracic. Needless to say, he was pretty uncomfortable for the first two weeks, but always making progress.  The right foot still doesn't have much feeling, but he is walking a lot and doing well.

It's 10am and the rain is almost stopped, so we plan to shove off, but will be leaving the end of wifi for a while and cell service is notoriously BAD,  I'll post again when I'm able.

See, he's actually smiling (4 hours after surgery)

Spring Grove?!?!

I think I left us in Georgetown, SC when last I wrote...

Next stop might have been Osprey Marina (one of our favorites) but we decided we should try to get more miles under the keel, so we went past Osprey, enjoying the peaceful beauty of the Wacamaw River, for  a while, but... it was a weekend and EVERYONE was out in their small runabouts and we were passed (in both directions) by no less than 50 noisy "Sunday" drivers. I had done a "tree study" five years ago as we traveled the Wacamaw and I remember why.  It really is beautiful.

This barely does the river justice...

We stopped at Barefoot Marina, not to be confused with Barefoot Landing Marina, the Landing is on the right (heading north) and the Barefoot Marina is on the left.  We had stayed at the Landing on the way down, where we were able to shop in the large shopping mall and got a ride to the local grocery store.  This time we enjoyed a more conventional marina that included a pool and hot tub.  Jeanne and I made fast work of heading up to check out the pool area.  It was beautiful, large and FUN.  

The weather has been cooperating these last few days and we are moving right along.  We have been averaging about 50 miles a day.  Our next target was South Harbor Village in Southport.  We had stopped on our way south and remembered the good restaurant, so we made good time and had enough time to do a laundry before heading to the Dead End Saloon for dinner.  We asked the crew of Osprey, a Catalina 34, to join us for dinner and enjoyed swapping cruising tales with them. Susan and Bill are from RI, but leave the boat at Bock Marine on Adams Creek for the summer.  

On the way we passed Lockwood's Folly Inlet, a spot notorious for shifting sands and moving buoys. We had run aground on our way south in the fall.  We were studying the Active Captain comments everywhere we noticed a "caution" symbol, and found one comment that included a link to a video of a drone trip through the questionable buoyage.  Boy has navigation changed!!  Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaWnUKm9AXY.   We breezed through this trouble spot easily!!

This time I decided to do a study of Osprey nests.  These are just a few!

Early departure from Southport put us heading up the Cape Fear River on an incoming tide, so we made good time and, even with the ever changing currents as you pass inlets, we made it to Harbor Village Marina in Hampstead, NC by mid afternoon.  This time we were on the gas dock and in easy reach of the office and bathrooms.  Ever since we were in Spanish Wells in the Bahamas Dan has been dealing with an ever increasing numbness in his feet and lower back along with some pain, so we were glad to be close to the shower...and yet he ended up falling on the dock as he headed up to take a shower.  It solidified our desire to move ahead as quickly as possible and maybe head home by car if we felt we could leave the boat is a secure place.

Another early departure with three possible stopping spots.  First was Dudley's Marina in Swansboro, but it was just noon as we passed Dudley's, and the wind was beginning to build, so we moved on.  The next possibility was Spooner's Creek Marina, about 10 miles before you reach Morehead City.  The trip across Bogue Sound was pretty wild, the wind, luckily not on the nose was blowing upwards of 20 knots and we were glad not to try negotiating the narrow entrance at Spooner's Creek.  We pressed on and made it the Morehead City Yacht Basin around 4 pm.  Landing there was still a challenge as the wind had not lessened much.  

We studied the current tables for the area leading to Adams Creek and decided on an eight o'clock departure.  That would get us up to the Neuse River and on to River Dunes by early afternoon and hopefully before the predicted thunderstorms.

True to our current MO, we left earlier than planned (7:15) and faced a small amount of current against us as we made our way up Adam's Creek! We still made it to River Dunes a little past noon.

Can't leave you without sharing a beautiful Trumpy picture, My Bernadette, from Newport, RI who passed us oun our way to Morehead City.

We decided River Dunes was the safest spot to leave Brunelle, so we got a rental car, loaded it with as much of our stuff that we figured we didn't need for the rest of the trip back to the Chesapeake, and drove home Saturday the 30th.  We visited our Orthopedic and Spine Specialists Urgent Care center Sunday morning, Dan had an MRI on Tuesday and this coming Tuesday, May 10th, he meets with a spine specialist to find out "what's next?!?!"  ~~~_/)~~~M&D

 

Busy week- New Smyrna to Georgetown, SC

Sure enough it was on the nose when we left New Smyrna, bur with much less gusto (and fewer gusts too.)  We had a long day, but did get some help from current even if the wind wasn't any help.  It was an eleven hour day, but we made it to Camachee Cove in St. Augustine just in time  for cocktails.

The bridge abutments are well decorated  as you leave New Smyrna, we went by Fort Matanzas and knew we
were getting close when the familiar St. Augustine lighthouse came in view, 

We were waiting for the 5:00 opening  of the Bridge of Lions in St. A when my phone rang and Pegg said, "You're missing cocktail hour!"  Jay and Pegg were standing in the middle of the bridge waving!

I had had a text from Jeanne telling us to hurry because they had cocktails waiting, so I told Jay and Pegg to meet us at the
marina.  Well it wasn't just cocktails, Jeanne had prepared dinner for us and their guests, Jon and Marilyn VanTassel (CCYC
friends) and there was enough to feed Jay and Pegg too!

We were fighting  the current as we waited for the bridge and all the way out toward the Inlet.  It didn't look very inviting and we were glad we weren't facing the challenge of going in or out the Inlet.

St. Augustine Inlet is famous for shifting sands, strong currents and missing or off-station markers.

An who should join us on our way toward the Vilano Bridge but this sleek fellow.

We were glad to finally be reunited with Gerry and Jeanne and happy to see Jon and Marilyn who were joining Ragtime  to help with the planned overnight passage from St. Augustine to points north.  Originally that point was to be Hilton Head, but we opted to go a bit further and come in at Port Royal Inlet and continued on up to B&B Seafood.

While in St. Augustine we barely had time to visit with Jay and Pegg as Jay left Tuesday to drive to PA to pick up a boat he had asked us to keep for a few years.  We did hit the Publix for more provisions and Pegg and I had a pleasant afternoon of girl type shopping.  Dan was anxiously awaiting several packages of boat parts that were shipped to Jay.  Everything did arrive, but not all projects got finished.  He replaced to dinghy lift support ring, but the alternator arrived too late for installation before our Wednesday departure.  He also replaced the bent bimini support that I managed to damage as we departed New Smyrna Beach.  Getting out of the slip in 20 knot wind caused us to "kiss" the anchor roller on some monster old boat behind us (no damage to it).

We saw that the El Galeon Andalucia (replica of the Spanish galleon that was part of the West Indies fleet 500 years ago) was tied up at the cit marina as we passed through the Bridge of Lions, but didn't realize until we set sail on Wednesday morning that she would be setting sail at the same time, headed for Beaufort, SC.

The St. Augustine Inlet was much quieter as we headed out on Wednesday morning.  The wind was next to non-existent so it was a motor ride all the way to Port Royal Inlet.  We spent most of the day trying to get a good picture of El Galeon and  Ragtime  as the followed us. It would have been even better if there had been some wind and El Galeon had been under sail, but...

El Galeon  never did catch up, much to our disappointment.

We did see more sea life than on previous trips, because the ocean was like glass, some of it identifiable and some not.

We saw LOTS of LARGE turtles, and unfortunately most of them looked in need of help.  Their shells were covered
with all sorts of barnacles and other creatures.  The guy at the top could barely dive down, I figured he had been
snoozing all day and this "topcoat" had dried out!

We were surprised to see several loons, we expect to see them on northern lakes, not out here.  It's amazing how
many mylar birthday balloon we have seen over the years.  The bottom two, we couldn't be sure....very slow
moving and sort of flopping around.  They might have been ocean sunfish.

There had barely been any definition in the horizon all day.  The hazy sky blended right in with the grayish ocean.  As dusk approached, we didn't even see the full

moon until two hours after it had risen, and then only for a few minutes before clouds obscured it's glow.  I was really bummed because all I could think about was the poem, The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes.  My dad would read (or often just recite) it to my sister and me at bedtime.  It begins.."The wind was a torrent of darkness upon the gusty trees.  The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas..."  I was dying to get a picture of the moon and the galleon together and had to resort to doing a panorama with my cell phone because El Galeon had slowed her progress and never got any closer for the rest of the trip.

The moon appeared for only a few minutes and doesn't look all that impressive (that small white dot in the upper left corner)
and neither it nor the galleon look terribly ghostly!

By 11 pm the clouds had dissipated and the moon shone brightly, but alas the galleon was no longer in sight.  The trip couldn't have been more pleasant or easier, and we arrived at the Port Royal Inlet just at slack tide in the morning and then had current with us almost all the way the B&B Seafood where we tied up by 2:30 pm.  We took a nap and bought shrimp both for eating and putting in the freezer.

We headed out at 8:00 Friday morning and headed to Charleston.  We checked several marinas, but the only one with any slips was the Charleston Harbor Marina and Resort, across the harbor from Charleston, in Mt. Pleasant.  It didn't excite us much because the docks are excessively long and then it's still a longer still walk to the office, bathrooms and there isn't ANY grass we could find.  Luckily Dory has decided (as have other dogs obviously) she can find someone else's markings to add hers to.   

We left again this morning at 8:00 for the long trek to Georgetown, and sure enough the current was against us most of the way!!  ...including the last 8 miles up Winyah Bay.  We got here at 6:00pm and found all the staff was still here because they knew the currents and winds had not been favorable for traveling north today.

  Two more quick pix from today.   ~~~_/)~~~M&D

We haven't seen too many alligators, and this guy looked really big!

It's really cool to have a good enough camera that we can now truly identify that white dot in that tree.

High winds keep us in New Smyrna Beach 3 days

Firstly I want to remind everyone to check the blog site not just read the emails because Sam has put the live map back at the top of the blog so you can see where we are as we make our way each day.

We left Cocoa Beach early Thursday in the hopes of getting to New Smyrna Beach before the bad weather set in.  It was beautiful and the sun appeared above the trees just as we left the marina.

Seven o'clock departure...all looks great.

...but, thirty minutes later, as we were approaching a 65' bridge, I realized I didn't see anything on the other side of the bridge!  The fog was rolling in.

It seemed to be rolling in from both sides.  I looked back and saw the sun struggling to burn through.

Luckily it burned off about two hours later and the day redeemed itself.  What wind we did have was too close to the bow, so we used the "iron jenny" the whole way.  We enjoyed the Indian River but were glad to see the Haulover Canal that crosses us over into Mosquito Lagoon...progress.  We saw several lumps along the shore in the canal and assume they were manatees.  We also saw some dolphins, more than we've seen the whole trip.

It's always fun to watch them swim by.  They are so graceful.

The only other wildlife we have seen - - -BIRDS - - -and lots of them.  We were told in the Bahamas there aren't any pelicans because they all got eaten by the Bahamians (haven't researched that yet!) We certainly see lots of them here, along with cormorants and gulls and terns of all varieties, not to mention the elaborate osprey nests appearing on many of the channel markers .  

They hang out wherever there is a place to perch.  There are two mangrove islands right outside our marina filled
to capacity with pelicans.  We were surprised at the integration on the above sandbar.  We usually see the white
pelicans gathered separately from the grey/brown variety.

We made it to New Smyrna Beach City Marina before it started to really blow (around 2:30) and here we sit.  We had a reservation for two nights but they said we'd have to leave Saturday because they had boats coming in.  Luckily the weather kept many boats from moving and we got a third night. We walked around town a bit today and enjoyed a great lunch at the Cork 'n Bottle.  The staff here have been very helpful and it's a very dog friendly place (even tho there is a resident cat that has given Dory the evil eye whenever they see each other.)  Dan was able to get several projects done while we sat, I did some spring cleaning, but I can always read or knit.

It's still howling outside as I sit here writing this, but tomorrow promises to be better. Winds only 10-15 knots which is fine with us, it may still be on the nose, but if we get a chance there are a few stretches that might allow us to sail.  ~~~_/)~~~M&D

Back in Florida

With 36 boats waiting to cross the Gulf Stream and most headed for Ft. Pierce, there was a lot of chatter on Monday morning!  When to leave, which spot to leave the banks and the best time to hit the inlet at Ft. Pierce.  Slack tide was reported to be 9:54 am on Tuesday morning, followed by a rising tide flowing in, so everyone was calculating their speed and when to leave.  After all this discussion at least half the boats got antsy and left before the targeted departure time!  Not surprisingly, we were included in that bunch...

Dory watching as Dan returns with a piece of SUPER GRASS doggie pad cut from an over large piece
on a neighboring boat.  We had visited  this boat in the morning and Dory explored their decks, sniffed at the
"grass" and promptly peed!!! We hoped it would make the 24 hour trip easier for her.  

This grass is much more lifelike than any we've seen.  Dory did finally use it, but not until we were in the ICW on our way
up to Vero Beach.  She did it, but didn't look happy about it!  

We had lunch, took Dory for a last land based pee spot and pulled the anchor at 1:15 pm.  (Almost two hours "early")  The wind was still a little north of East and that made the 60 mile  trip across the banks a very broad reach.  We put the main up and were able to carry the jib for part of the trip, but the closer the wind came to East, the harder it was to keep it full, so before sunset we rolled the jib in and proceeded with main alone.  We also put the preventer on to keep the boom from bouncing around as the seas became rolly.  We left the bank at 11:30 pm and were surprised how sloppy the seas were and were worried how it would be when we actually reached the Gulf Stream (about 20 miles west of the banks)

Our buddy boat Kanga  looked great against the shallow blue waters of the banks, and Greg & Paula were more energetic and
managed to maintain wing 'n wing for a while.

We were pleasantly surprised to see that the seas actually calmed a bit in the Stream.  We opted to head much further south than the actual course to Ft. Pierce to keep from running the risk of being by the lee which could cause an accidental jibe.  It worked well because the Stream carried us north and we were right on target and on time by the time we got to the Inlet.  It was an easy ride in, but we did hear reports from earlier boats that it was nasty when the current was still flowing out.

Once inside we turned right and headed north to Vero Beach.  It took us another 2 hours or so to get up the the mooring field in Vero.  We called them and asked if we could stop at the fuel dock for diesel and to fill the water tanks before picking up a mooring ball. The dock was full so we idled and waited for it to clear.  When we got the OK to come in I put the engine in reverse to get us positioned and when I tried to put it in forward it immediately shut down.  I tried about three times, both forward and reverse with the same result.  We quickly dropped the hook so Dan could assess the situation.  He was worried it was a frozen transmission.  We radioed Kanga and asked Greg if he'd come help us tow the boat to the mooring ball they were on.  Dan headed off in the dinghy and was about 20 feet away when the epiphany hit - - - something wrapped around the prop!!  He and Greg came back (Greg in his bathing suit) and Greg went down and confirmed we had a wrap.  Dan's back was bothering him so Greg offered to continue to dive and cut it off.  We finally got the Hookah diving compressor out and he made quick work of it.

It isn't pretty!  The inset shows how the line had "melted" and "glued" itself to the shaft.

While this was going on I got a call from a high school friend.  Actually he had been an AFS eschange student during my junior year and we had several classes together.  We hadn't kept in touch, but I saw his picture associated with his 50th class reunion and contacted him  We had seen him in Ft. Lauderdale three years ago on our trip around to Ft. Myers and met his wife, Elisabeth. They are building a house in Vero and offered to come by to see if we needed anything.  It was a BIG help because we had to present ourselves in Ft. Pierce at the airport to pass through customs.  We thought we had it covered by signing up for the DTOPS program through the Customs and Border Patrol, but that only covered the boat, we weren't included!  The drive down was half and hour, we were in the small office for about 4 minutes and that's all it took.  We stopped at Publix on our way back to the boat because I had used  up EVERYTHING fresh, expecting the Customs guy to ask me to bring any produce with me... Nobody seemed to care.  Dan was not feeling up to going out, so he went back to the boat and I had  a lovely dinner with Flavio and Elisabeth.  I was back aboard by 8 and asleep by 9:15.

We headed out this morning a little after 8 am and had a nice trip up to Cocoa Beach.  The wind cooperated and we motorsailed most of the way.  We're not sure how soon we will be on the move again because a big weather front is supposed to dump 3 inches or more of rain in the next two or three days...~~~_/)~~~M&D

Last week in the Abacos...we think

Our trip back to the Treasure Cay beach at low tide was lovely, but no sand bar.  Dan's back was bothering him so he opted to sit outside the bakery while the laundry was being done.  Mike opted to stay with him, so Debbie and I headed off.

We walked to the end of the beach---no sand bar,  Debbie and I each found 1 shell...not anything special either!!

I couldn't pass up taking a bunch of pictures of the beach.... 

We felt bad that we hadn't said our good-byes to Ed and Connie Dooley, so we headed back to Marsh Harbour and anchored this time.  What to do,  there were two events advertised - - The Jib Room was offering $3.00 drinks if you brought an appetizer to share and Snappas was having a "Who let the dogs out?" event, buy two drinks and get a free hot dog.  Ed and Connie wanted to be at the Jib Room, so we went and enjoyed drinks and snacks and thought that was enough.  But Mike and Debbie wanted to hit Snappas, and we had mentioned to a couple on a Ranger 27 Tug that we would probably be going over there, so off across the harbor we went to Snappas.  As we tied up at the dinghy dock we noticed that two dinghies were pinned under the dock by the rising tide,  We were able to dance on the bow of one and pop it out, but the other (belonging to the Ranger) had the engine pinned under.  We went inside and they came out to try to work it out.  It took filling it with water and three of us standing on the tubes to get the engine out, but not without breaking off the shift lever. We had our "dogs" and then towed our new friends back to their Ranger!

We left early Friday morning because all reports indicated the Whale was "doable" ...and it was.  We heard "Piece of cake",  "EZ, PEEZY", and such over the radio.  We had the jib out, but the wind was so light it didn't do much.  We were approaching Green Turtle Cay near low tide, so we knew we wouldn't be going into Black Sound, so decided to try White Sound.  We had only been there by golf cart on previous visits.

These three colorful houses are on the southern end of Green Turtle Cay and I tried to get a picture last time...it took Dan and
his big camera to do them justice.

The channel into White Sound was none too deep as we entered slowly, I saw 6'4" a few times, but we never bumped.  We took the last mooring and counted our Bahamian money.  We still had too much, so we took the dinghy over to New Plymouth Harbor and bought a few souvenirs and some freshly made conch salad.  Back to the boat, still too much money, so we opted to go into Bluff House for dinner.  Of course it was more than we had, but they took the cash and charged the rest!  You get a lousy deal turning in Bahamian dollars in the US.

Here's White Sound,  Green Turtle Marina pictured on the left and Bluff House on the right (in reality, they are reversed)
and a wonderful sunset.

Obviously the exodus has begun.  We, and everyone else have been studying the different weather guru reports looking for the time to cross back to Florida.  We left White Sound on Saturday morning hoping to stop at Powell Cay for the night and then figure out where to stage our crossing.  Leaving White sound at high tide was easy and we headed for Powell and tried the jib for a while, but most of the 12 mile trip was (you guessed it) to windward.  As we approached Dad said, "I think that's a Catalina."  Sure enough it was, it was Kanga, a 42, friends of Mike and Debbie.   We anchored near them and took Dory and their "potcake" puppy, Abby, ashore.  Paula and Greg Smith adopted her from Andros and they say that potcake (referring to the "mutt" breed prevalent in the islands is a recognized AKC breed.

Dory, being the b..ch she is still doesn't like this cute puppy, we decided it was tail envy.  Abby's is LONG!  We ventured around to the windward side of Powell but were unable to reach the beach. The perigee tide seemed to be in evidence here!  Kanga's crew came over for dinner and we found out that Greg went to St. Francis Prep in Spring Grove!! (It used to be the Glatfelter mansion)  Small world again!!

 

Greg borrowed my phone to try to get a picture of our two boats "beached" but should have been on his knees!

Here's a potcake sunset!!  Abby  is adorable (don't tell Dory I said that!)

We all agreed to hoist anchor at 7:30 and head for Great Sale Cay and stage for the crossing.  The wind was 15-18 from the NE and what a sail.  We were able to sail the whole way until we rounded up to come into the anchorage at the SW corner of the cay.  There were 17 boats here when we arrived and I just heard there are at least 36 here now!  As I said, the exodus has begun.

Boats here, boats coming in to anchor and still more outside,"coming 'round the bend""

Tomorrow will tell whether we're on our way or on hold....~~~_/)~~~M&D