USA - Florida No Name Harbor to Bahamas - Eleuthera, Spanish Wells

3rd Boosters done and dusted!

Arm was a little sore next day, like I’d been punched and had a lame muscle. Otherwise all good.

We are ready to GO, all prepped, except for a DHL package from South Africa that had been delayed by American Customs Inspection. 

I went ashore on Friday mid-morning and took a Freebee Shuttle to UPS Store to collect our final Amazon and other supplier packages. I was MOST surprised and happy that whilst in UPS the DHL man with my ‘Out for Delivery’ South African package walked in. Yay!!

As I arrived back at Meshugga, Nicholas had all systems ready, Hatches Dogged, Main ready for Hoisting and Windlass Remote ready for me to lift the anchor.

We had 18 knots SW wind, a 3 foot swell, which gave us a fast ride across the Gulf Stream Current, averaging 11 knots all day. Although we headed due East, the current swept us north, and we made good time to cross onto the Bahamas bank north of Bimini. Our Route was to sail north of the Berries, and to Spanish Wells, Eleuthera to Clear Into Bahamas.

Here we are anchored north of Spanish Wells in the lee of a resort with a pretty beach and a big Private Beach sign <g>.

22 hours Anchor up to Anchor down. A good fast crossing!

We went ashore to clear-in. I unfortunately left my iPhone/ Camera on Meshugga so no Pictures.

FYI, for other Cruisers, the Customs Man was not in his office (the yellow building next to the Golf Car rental spot) on the Main jetty. Although he had a phone number on a sign on his door, with no phone we went to ask help at the Golf Car shop who kindly called him.

At all other Checkin Islands we had to do Immigration first, so we walked (just up the road the lady said), which ended up being next to Fair Shopping (in the Eagle Landing Building), about 1 1/2  miles along a busy road, in hot humid conditions. Immigration would only give us 90 days 🙁

Having checked into Immigration, I told Nicholas I was hitching back, and stuck out my thumb to the first Golf Car that came past. It immediately stopped and we jumped onto the he back seat, and he kindly gave us a ride to the Marina, where we walked the last 200m.

Back at Customs, the Officer was most kind and courteous, and told us that he doubles up and does Immigration for yachts as well (so there was no need for the walk to Immigration). Customs quickly done, we had our 1 Year Cruising Permit for Meshugga!

All Legal, time for an Arrival Libation 🇧🇸 

USA - Florida, Key Biscayne, No Name Harbor

So, we’re back at Meshugga, and Nicholas is shopping up a storm for maintenance and repair items. We’ve also hired a vehicle and are doing the huge stock up for 1 year of victuals, food, snacks, booze, drinks, propane, diesel. The lists are never ending.

So cool to see dolphins in No Name Harbor, it’s sporadic but most days there is a sighting.

Nicholas helped Stephen, a single handed, retrieve and rerun a halyard. Stephen was most kind in keeping an eye on Meshugga whilst we were in Batavia, Chicago.

I like Pelicans, and we’d often see them at Crandon Marina, where we anchored to receive our new additional Solar Panels.

Returning our trusty Hire Vehicle. It did the job well for all our victualing.

Shopping complete, we headed for Matteson Hammock Marina where Diesel was more than a dollar cheaper than Crandon marina. Seeing we were filling up with almost 300 G, it sounded like a good deal to us.

Whilst Nicholas attended to the Filling Up, I took an Uber to Uhaul, in Dixie Highway to get our Propane tanks filled.

As usual I had the run-around from the staff as our tanks are Viking Composite, and not the ‘normal’ household American steel BBQ tanks. On my insistence, the Manager was called, and reluctantly agreed to get out the Handbook and call American Gas to confirmation that they can fill our tanks.

I’d told him that I’d been to this same facility 4 times previously and every time it was the same saga. But at least I got my 3 x 22Lb tanks filled. Yay! 

Exceptional sunset tonight, almost not a breath of wind

USA - Illinois, Batavia, ThanksGiving

 What an awesome week!!!!!!!

We flew from MAIMI to Chicago to spend ThanksGiving with our Son Kieran, our Daughter-in-Law Katie, and Grand-Daughter Arden, who is 17 months old.

We flew with Frontier, who were offering good rates.Nothing wrong with them, except that the airports shut down due to Fog and we had a 4 hour delay.

The new puppy, Ursa is a cutie pie, even if she want to chew everything and pee everywhere.

Arden love Ursa and here is is in Ursa’s room and cuddling in her bed

A chilly walk to the park

ThanksGiving Dinner at the McHughs (Katies family), so wonderfully welcoming and food galore

Our little family with Nicholas (Gumps), me (Dee) Arden, Kieran (Dada) and Katie (Mama)

Granny Maureen (Gigi)

Our little Princess (the pearls were a hit with her 2 year old cousin)

Drinks down at the Fox River. Arden

Nicholas with Ursa

Nicholas training Ursa to ‘Fetch the Ball’

Me with my my beautiful funny clever Granddaughter (yes I am biased) !!

USA - Florida, Key West

Yay, and we’re back in the US of A…….

We anchored abeam Fleming Cay, and did the ROAM App for inward clearance. As usual, being foreigners, we had to report to CBP (Customs Border Patrol) for Immigration and Customs. As always, CBP staff were professional, quick and efficient, and we had our passports stamped and Cruising Permit in hand. 

We traipsed down Duval Street looking at all the touristy stuff. Having been to Key West 5 years ago we did not feel the need to revisit all the iconic bars and Ernest Hemingway’s house. 

Arrival beers, after we’d checked in, at the iconic Schooners Bar, with high prices and bad wait staff attitude, after a few hours of walking and sightseeing. 

As we’re very low on Diesel 0% and 5.% in our tanks, we picked up 2 Jerry cans of diesel at huge $6/G cost. Heading back to Meshugga our 1 year Suzuki outboard suddenly sounded rough and cut out. Definitely Spark plus, but we had no spares on the dinghy. 

A kind sailor bypassing on his skiff gave us a tow back to Meshugga. 

We have to up our game and keep a few more tools and spares aboard the dinghy to be better prepared incase we’re somewhere without assistance. 

Mexico -Isla Mejures

Two days into our passage and just south of the Mexican island Isla  Cozumel our auto-pilot stopped working. Yikes. 

We hand steered up the west coast of Cozumel (20 miles) until we got to a bay that we could anchor in. Most of the Cozumel coast is a marine park with no overnight anchoring and we’d no idea how long the repair would take or what even the problem with the auto-pilot was, so we needed to stop somewhere that the officials would not chase us away. 

Lots of hotels lined the coast and a few para-sailing boats quite close to Meshugga 

No sooner than we’d dropped anchor a boat came by to tell us that the Port Captain was trying to hail us on VHF 16.

We switched on our VHF and as expected, the Port Captain wanted to start inward clearance procedures for Mexico. Him speaking little English and us with no Spanish, it was a difficult communication, however with Google Translate, we managed to relay that this was only an Emergency stop and as soon as our auto-pilot was fixed we’d be on our way. 

Cruise Ships

By the time Nicholas had identified the problem, removed the part and fashioned a make-do repair it was dark. Tired, we decided on an early night and early morning departure. 

I awoke at 4.30am with Nicholas hoisting the Main sail. 

The expected north easterly came thru 3 hours into our trip. (Which is why we had been trying to get from Guatemala to Isla Mejures by Saturday night, 5 Nov). At least the NE wind was light and we could motor sail with not too big swells yet. 

Motor sailing past Cancun, it’s wall to wall resorts.

We anchored in the bay of Isla Mejures along with 20 other yachts and a gazillion charter boats motoring past blaring music and people enjoying the Sunday afternoon sunshine.

Arrival Margaritas at Skulls Landing

Excellent Lobster Tacos

Four days of chilling and looking around on shore 

Some sights on Isla Mejures

A last night out at Skulls for drinks and live music

It was time to leave using the back of Hurricane Nicole (which slammed into Vero beach Florida).  

We upped anchor at 3.30am, and with a full moon it was easy to see the other yachts at anchor.

The winds was as expected NW and then West. We were able to motor sail the whole way. Light winds made for a slow passage and thankfully a small swell of the north setting current  

Only one scary time, Nicholas dodged a huge squall, but the resulting sea state was huge 18 foot swells. Meshugga rode up and fell down these huge swells causing our number 1 reef clew strop to snap. We then hoisted full main and almost immediately had the full main clew, a 10mm shackle, explode. Yikes. 

We reefed to 2 reefs and reefed the StaySail, waiting for the swell to abate. 

Downside is that we were stuck with a max of two reefs in a dying breeze. Next day, with minimal breeze and almost flat seas we dropped all sails and gently motored downwind, and Nicholas went up into the boom to retie a new strip onto the Main clew. All good, and we could hoist full main to help our motor sailing. Cuba in the distance. 

The rest of our passage was uneventful, lots of Cruise Liners on AIS, and we arrived in Key West to the noise and speed of the Fast Cigarette Boats (or whatever they’re called) National Championships.