Our next day was HOT HOTTER HOTTEST. We made it to Mangrove on smooth, crystal clear water and dropped the hook. We decided to leave around lunchtime the next day so we could prepare the boat for our crossing and also arrive at the anchorage in the cooler evening rather than the hot afternoon. The Captain tightened all the rigging, checked the water in the batteries (which were misbehaving a bit even after the replacement alternator was in), checked other fluids, and we lashed everything down since the wind was picking up (defying all predictions). We left as planned, with the contingency that if the wind didn't die down we would bypass Memory Rock as our last anchorage and continue overnight to the States. When we passed Memory Rock we were rocking and rolling and figured if we were going to rock and roll anyway we might as well be making headway on our journey. Thankfully we'd already made the travel preparations for our crossing, so we hunkered down for an overnighter. We had good wind for the Genoa, but couldn't use the main because of the loose and shaky mast rigging. We also had to turn on the engine periodically to charge the batteries (but had to keep an eye on them to keep them from overcharging). Soooooooo, about 22 hours later and with very little sleep, we arrived in the U.S. But we had a beautiful full moon, very little traffic, and no casualties with either crew or boat contents.
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| our travel beacon |
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| lookin pretty scary after an all-nighter |
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| land ho (I think she's on the beach) |
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| the homes are a teeny bit different than the ones in the Bahamas |
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