Let the Limping Begin – Hopetown, Bahamas, March 20. 2022

We made it safely to Hopetown on Friday night.  Step 1 was to complete the crossing of the Abaco Sound via open ocean.  We have been presented with several options. 

·         Option 1 – is to haul out in Marsh Harbor if we cannot see a weather window to Florida anytime soon

·         Option 2 – wait it out and limp to Florida. 

As any good cruiser would do, we decided to head to the local hang out and mull it over at the charity concert supporting the “Abaco Rage.”  This is the defending champion regatta team.  It was a great distraction from our recent issues and good to get off the boat for a while.

Marsh Harbor is an expensive solution to our problem, and we saw a weather window came up to potentially get to Green Turtle and next across the gulf stream.  Instead of enduring the pain of VAT tax, parts shipping, Marsh Harbor haul out, and accommodations in the Bahamas, we have decided to limp the boat to Florida.  This saves us having to haul out the boat two times as well.  Ron will be wiring up the back up bilge pumps and we are putting together a ditch bag, if necessary, but in good faith it will not be.

Now…getting to Green Turtle, which is only a 25-mile trip through “the whale” from Hopetown.  Good news is we do not have to go through “the whale” and can take the easy inside route to get there which we plan to do to be easy on our boat.  “The whale” is a cut around Whale Cay.   The bad news is our buddy boat must go through the whale as the inside route we are taking is too shallow for them.  Right now, we are waiting on a window to cross on the same day they do even though we are not taking the exact same route.  We have identified Wednesday as the day for both of us can leave.  We already have a mooring reserved waiting on our arrival. 

Let the limping begin.