Plotting an exit strategy

June 3

There's a saying in the boating world called "When the barn door opens" ... and it relates to the feeling that comes over you when you start talking more about your return trip to the states than your next anchorage.  That feeling ends up taking a life of its own, and pretty soon, you start to think "why not now?" after you listen to the morning weather forecast.

We had been idly thinking that June 15 would be a good day to cross back, for the simple reason that it's a full moon.   What better reason to make a 36+hr, overnight crossing back to Florida?  But then today, Chris Parker (the morning weather guru) suggested that Thursday, June 9, could be a good weather window between two cold fronts for sailboats looking for calm seas and good wind.... which lead the Captain to say, "why not now?". 

That's all it took, and now we are moving from an itinerary with no specific destinations in mind to one that will have us staged to cross on the 6th (.... provision, change the oil, fuel, water, laundry ...).  If the weather doesn't cooperate, then we'll hang out at Great Sale Cay (our crossing point from the Bahamas) until the next weather window, which hopefully will coincide with the full moon on the 15th.  Leaving on the 6th gives us a greater margin for making the crossing and then prepping the boat for haul out and deal with any unexpected detours..  For example:  we hope to cross directly to Jacksonville, ~275 miles/36+hours, but depending on how the crossing actually goes, we want the option to bail out at either Ft Pierce FL or Cape Canerval, both of which will add several days to our final arrival in Jacksonville.

We think we've settled on hauling the boat at a marina in Jacksonville for 4-5 months while we return to MN and wait out hurricane season before returning to paint the bottom and finish several other boat projects after the temps in FL have returned to reasonable levels.

Which leaves us counting our swims in the beautiful Bahama waters on one hand ... not to mention the rum drinks we want to sample one more time!

Of course, I remind myself, all these intentions could change after any given weather forecast ... but for now, the barn door is open, and our thoughts are focused on home. And to all of our Minnesota lifelines, watch your cell phones because the next time you'll hear from us will be by text once our phones are active again!

Time for one last trip down island to the Abaco Inn. They picked us up at Hopetown and let us spend the day at their lovely pool and beach.

P.S. For those still counting, Dan is departing with one 12-pk of Modelo on the boat!  Thanks to the generous visits of Mikel and Robert, his initial supply of beer stretched out just perfectly!  Two bottles of rum in the liquor cabinet.  We've learned that we love diced tomatoes in just about anything, and canned corn and green beans are our favorite canned vegies.  I never used one can of tomato paste (ended up giving away 12 cans to s/v Glenice!).  And I now know that there's no point in bringing more spaghetti sauce than you have noodles to go with it! And next time, we'll bring more mayo b/c it was a staple to have cole slaw on hand for impromptu dinners with other boaters (and cabbage lives forever outside of the refrigerator!).  I still believe you cannot have enough salsa or refried beans, even though the high cost of tortilla chips dampened our use of this for happy hour get togethers.  And, thanks to Renee Devereaux, because her sweet potato/turkey sausage soup was one of our staple meals b/c we can find those ingredient everywhere... and everyone loves it!

And I'd be totally remiss w/o giving a huge shout-out to Tim Ryan, who graciously sold us his Honda 2000 generator last summer, which has been the life blood of our sojourn in the Bahamas.  Energy is the key to all existence, and our boat is no exception.  We have one solar panel which isn't enough to keep us in cold food, ice, lights and an occasional DVD w/o the near daily use of that trusty generator.

And a special thanks to our dear friend, Jim G, who managed to find us at the most obsure spots via Skype!

It truly takes a village.