The sun has just broken the horizon in yet another beautiful sunrise over the Carribean. Martin woke up at 3 am this morning and we decided to leave early to have a few decimeters margin when motoring out of the anchorage at mid tide rather than low tide. We are leaving our last anchorage in the Exumas in The Bahamas and will head to the US in a few days. Yesterday we visited Pig Beach where someone decided it would be a great thing to have pigs on a beach. And yes it is good fun. We stopped at the beach on our way to Staniel Cay where we were to throw away our garbage bags among other things, and when we beached the dinghy the pigs were overly excited by the smell of the garbage bags. We were overwhelmed by the attention but when one of them jumped up in our dinghy to dig out the garbage we realized it’s probably a good idea to anchor the dingy some distance away and swim ashore.
Yesterday we also visited Thunderball grotto – a very cool cave accessible through a few openings that are slightly above the water surface at low tide only. The cave, known for its appearance in the James Bond movie with the same name, is full of reef fish in all colors and the water is crystal blue, colored by the light from its openings.
After the cave visit we hung out with a bunch of American families on a beach nearby. We decided to go spearfishing with them today but as you know by now, that never happened since we left instead. We never even said goodbye and we didn’t exchange contact details. Yet another meeting that was there and then only.
It is emotional to leave the Caribbean behind. The last few weeks, we have had much focus on logistics around our eastbound Atlantic crossing and on understanding what’s ahead of us. We have also covered a long distance in just a few weeks. As the realization that the Caribbean adventure is soon over dawns on us, all sorts of thoughts go through our minds. We measure the distance to Panama and play with the idea of making a 90 degree turn to the port and extend the trip for another year. Or two. Or maybe we should at least stay here just another week and have just a little more time in Bahamian paradise. But we realize that it will not make any difference in the end. In mornings like this we feel especially grateful for the exceptional adventure that we have had and are having. Life onboard can sometimes be intense and we can fall into an everyday routine where the sentiment onboard is just the same as it would have been at home. But when the routine is broken by the ending of a chapter or the beginning of a new, we feel enormous gratitude.
The Bahamas has been a fantastic experience. Probably the most beautiful country that we have visited. We look back at perfect turquoise waters and white beaches along with spectacular sailing across vast areas of shallow water such as the Exuma bank where we today will cover 70 NM where we can see the bottom at all time, and never have more than 5 m of water under the keel. We have also been dodging some hard weather reminding us of that we have left the tropical latitudes and that we are affected by the steady string of cold fronts from the US east coast, with intense weather at times.
Next up is the last few nights in the Bahamas at an anchorage just outside Nassau. The wind will be turning 180 degrees so we are keeping our fingers crossed that we will have enough protection from the swell tomorrow. Towards this weekend, it seems like we may have a weather window to cross the Gulf Stream and head to the USA – another great adventure ahead.
