Monthly Archives: December 2025

Can’t Beat the Water – Georgetown, Red Shanks, Bahamas, December 21, 2025

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Can’t Beat the Water – Georgetown, Red Shanks, Bahamas, December 21, 2025

Friends told us our first year here in Georgetown that we would be back to the Bahamas and you won’t be able to beat the beautiful turquoise water here no matter how far south to Grenada you go.  I am here to attest that this is a true statement and at this point we have certainly become “water snobs.”  Since Thanksgiving in the Exuma Land and Sea Park we have meandered our way down through the Exuma Islands, including Emerald Bay (which is a lovely little marina to get diesel fuel), Black Point, and Elizabeth Harbor. 

There are a couple of downsides we got going for us at this point.  Number one, Ron needed to climb the mast to replace the wind sensor we broke off on one of the bridges (El Pablo) on the intercoastal.  When we got down to Georgetown, he tried a couple times, but his fear of heights didn’t let him get to the top.  Remember the sailing karma we try to create?  We got it.  The guy Ron ended up helping saw the cable from his anchor was parked right next to us here in Elizabeth Harbor and has offered to climb our mast and replace the wind sensor!  Whew!  Now Ron will eventually need to climb the mast to polish stainless rigging but it won’t be such a crisis and we can get to this in our own timeline while having a wind sensor (telling us wind speed) in the meantime.  Very nice and thank you to Dane from SV Tamika.

Quick work!

Issue number two was that I broke my big toe again.  Ugh.  I slipped and fell on the back of the boat getting on my paddle board and bent my toes back completely.  I can walk in flip flops, but it has turned nicely bruised and I cannot wear tennis shoes or fins.  Guess I won’t be hiking much for the next few weeks until I can stand wearing real shoes again.  I can still swim and paddle board on my knees but I think we will be laying low here and have decided to move over to a mooring ball in Red Shanks, where we are the only boat in the bay.  It offers 360 protection, a nice dose of privacy, and easy access to town for grocery and propane.  We are fairly close to turtle bay and plan to head over to feed the turtles and too many large red starfish to count.  It is lovely and if we are stuck for bit this is a great place to spend Christmas.  Looks like we are attending the lovely potluck planned here on Chat ‘N Chill Beach!

Ouch

The Crossing– Great Harbor Cay, The Berry Islands, Bahamas, November 16, 2025

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The Crossing – Great Harbor Cay, The Berry Islands, Bahamas, November 16, 2025

We started off from Vero Beach where after an eventful morning we got started.  Our neighbor, who was looking to jump over to the Abacos, started their day off by getting their anchor chain caught on a one inch underwater cable.  Since they had moved around with the tides overnight, it was wrapped around their chain several times.  We watched for a few minutes and watching them struggle, Ron decided to be a good Samaritan and go over and help.  He took over our angle grinder which seemed to work much better than the hack saw he was using. After a several minutes and a few battery packs, they were free.  Hopefully the karma gods are watching!

We started our crossing at about 5:00am and left out of Fort Pierce, Florida.  We planned to go a bit farther and head back to check into the Berry Islands.  We had hoped to get more than the typical 90 days and the good news is we made it over they gave us 120 days before needing to check in with the immigration office again.  Timewise it took us about 28 hours and we sailed overnight getting in around noon the following day.  Weather wise the wind were about 10-15 kts but on the beam which made for a rolly ride at times. The temperature was COLD!  It was definitely time to get south since 55 degrees on a boat was cold and our heat was minimal.  I drug out our warmed pink blanket to help.

This is top notch fashion!

The only issue we had with the boat was loosing an engines.  Not good.  Typically this is a fuel related issue so the first step was to change the fuel filter which we changed before we left. Imagine crawling down into the engine bay sitting on a hot engine while you change a filter while dodging a rudder post swinging a few inches away. The filter looked new which was unexpected. Next step is to restarted the engine and see what happens. 40 minutes later the engine died again! Plan B was to check the fuel pick up in the fuel tank that was really all that was left. This was easier said than done since it was under the master bed which weighs about 150 lbs. Once that was all wrestled out of the way Ron made quick work removing the pickup. Sure enough it was completely clogged. In a past life this tank had a diesel bug issues which was supposed to have been taken care of by the prior owner. When they polished the tank they missed one major step and that was cleaning the pickup. 60 minutes later and we are back up and running both engines.

This is after wiping it off.

The rest of the trip was uneventful other than the vast amount of shipping traffic we needed to navigate in the dead of the night. Thankfully radar and our AIS system made this less stressful. All in all we passed 60 + large cargo and cruise ships.

Much like a video game with no life’s left.
Much easier to see in the day time.

We stayed in the Berry Islands for about a week to recover from the passage and be sure both engines are fully back online.  The beaches here are truly beautiful, however, the water was still pretty cold.  This drove us to head as far south as we could as early as possible since we wanted to get in some snorkeling and paddleboarding. After a nice week of hiking and beach walking it was time to move on, and we ended up at Shroud Key to meet up with our Sailing Buddy Ben.

Ben needed a Star Link, and we picked up a Star Link mini before leaving Florida and brought it with us.  Boy, do we wish we would have gotten one for ourselves.  The downside of our current Star Link is we have an older version and do not have the Mini which uses much less power than the new Mini they have come out with.  This will likely be a future upgrade since we could use the power savings on both the boat and RV.  Unfortunately, with all the other upgrades and funds we have spent, it is on the back burner till our next year’s boat budget starts.

Once our weather window opened up, we high tailed it down to the only place with any protection in the Exuma’s, directly to the Land and Sea Park and Ben tagged along.  You can’t got wrong here and we were finally able to do some snorkeling. This is one of those places you just cannot skip. We were also able to hike everyday and picked up plastic from the windward side of the island. Luckily we got invited by the staff to attend their huge thanksgiving potluck.   It was a wonderful event and we met a few friends on the vessel “Mystic.”  Definitely a great way to spend the holiday with friends if we couldn’t be home.

Not a place to skip!