Another day of motor-sailing and avoiding rain squalls wherever possible. We encountered more shipping than we had so far in our travels from the BVI. I guess the Northeast and Northwest Providence Channels around the Abacos are major shipping routes from the Gulf of Mexico and Florida. It is very comforting to be able to identify the ships using AIS, which also tells us their speed, heading, nearest approach to us and time to nearest approach. We didn’t have to hail any of them, thankfully, but one cruise liner did hail us as we entered a rainstorm to find out what the wind was doing in the middle of the storm! I presume they have so much windage, it is worth knowing in advance…. or is to keep the passengers happy?image

Bahama Bay Marina at West End was easy to navigate to but we decided we wanted to top up our fuel tanks first, just like about a dozen sport fishing boats that are a lot more maneuverable than us. It was a true test of Howard’s patience (not something he is known to be over-endowed with) but we made it safely in the end and finally tied up at our berth almost 2 hours later. The cantaloupe, back bacon, black pudding, fried egg, and fried tomato with home-made multi-grain bread went down a treat for brunch shortly afterwards. A little later a 26-year-old Italian guy sailing single-handed in 42 ft aluminum French-built boat with lifting keel (forgotten the make, sorry) joined us in the berth adjacent to us. He had just crossed from Cuba and had intended to go as far as Bermuda but the weather wasn’t cooperating. We ended up inviting him to join us for a simple supper.

We had hoped to be on our way to Port Canaveral, crossing the Gulf Stream, today but our weather router, Chris Parker, advised us that Thursday would be a much better day as there will be thunderstorms in the GS tonight with winds up to 40k; not something we want to be in, especially without a functioning staysail. So, we plan to explore a bit around here today and pick up a few more provisions and hopefully find someone who has a sewing machine that can cope with the task of repairing it, which it seems my machine cannot, much to my dismay. Currently it is hot and sunny without much breeze so a swim is probably in order too. We have incentive to move on as soon as we can as the dock fees here are the steepest yet, and there’s nowhere locally safe to anchor.