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.

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.

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.

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.