Home Away From Home – Crossing the Whale, Bahamas, May 10, 2026

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there including my own!  It is always a challenge to be away from family, especially on holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving, Birthdays, etc.  It is the end of the season and Ron and I are both feeling the pull back to land life for no other reason than seeing our family.  We have spent the last few weeks wrapping up the Exuma’s, crossing the New Providence Channel, visiting Hopetown, and this morning we are headed to Green Turtle Cay by crossing the Whale Cay in the Abacos.  “The Whale” is between Whale Cay and Treasure Cay and known to be rough with dangerous breaking waves in a northern wind.  Good news is this morning we have a nice south, southeast wind 😊.  It is a short 5-hour trip from Hopetown which holds a special place in my heart.  It brings back memories of our first year when we were “stuck” here for nearly a month and spent our first Christmas away from home here.  It is a quaint little town with gingerbread cottages of pink, yellow with which railings and turquoise shutters.  Beautiful!  It is nice to have a bit of familiarity when we are away.  No one really talks about how hard it is to be away from family, even as fun as this travelling lifestyle is.

Our plan is to stage in Green Turtle until a few thunderstorms pass by then head over to Great Sail Cay and stage for our crossing back to the states.  Normally thunderstorms are not typically that bad, however this year in the Bahamas they have produced winds in the 50-70 knot range. In one anchorage 5 miles from us a storm popped up produced 70 knot winds, one boat drug anchor into a reef and to top it off was also struck by light ing killing all electronics on board. Ouch!

As beautiful as the Bahamas is I think we are both ready for a bit of a change.  The hurricane plans this year is to stay on the boat in Isle of Hope in Savannah.  It is a bit south of Thunderbolt Marina, where we hauled out last year and is still fairly protected.  It will be a new experience staying on the boat throughout hurricane season since we have hauled out every other year.

It is a good thing we are staying on the boat as we have a few projects to do.  Last year we started on window replacements and may continue this.  She needs a good cleaning, so I get to start on that.  And recently we have identified a nice Diesel fuel leak on our port side tank.  Every time we have filled it up recently it gets over pressurized and spits a few gallons out the top leaving a nice puddle of fuel in our bilge and enough fumes to require us to completely open the boat.  Not great when diesel here is $9 a gallon.  Ouch.  Thank You Donald J. Trump!  When the world is facing an affordability crisis is will be odd to go back to the states and feel like things are cheap compared to island prices.  But it will still be nice to get back.  There is a wedding in our future for daughter #4 – yeah! – and my carnivore husband is missing eating salads!  Looking forward to seeing everyone and we will be there soon!