June 20 - Hang out for the day at the pool and at the Little Bahama Bank beach at Old Bahama Bay Marina catching our breath. It would have been a perfect day to go across the Stream to the States, but we need a rest and we had planned to stay for two/three nights anyway. Weather report is benign, so it shouldn’t matter.
June 21 - Rent a car and tour the Island. Go to Grand Lucayan National Park which has a very extensive cave system (we could only see into the openings, not enter-but interesting just the same), and a nature walk on raised pathways over mangrove swamps on the beach side of the main road which was very well done and interesting. Get stuck in a thunderstorm, but it’s a lot less threatening in a car than on a sailboat. Also tour Grand Lucayan hotel on the ocean in Lucaya, which is very nice, but most of rest of Lucaya and apparently Freeport has seen better days. Wanted to see the Xanadu Hotel but discovered it was closed.
June 22 - Would have left today, but weather is not as predicted, and lesson learned, we’re stuck on the Island until get acceptable weather window. Hang out at pool and ocean and flagellate myself (mentally at least) for not having left which the leaving was good. At $200 a day, it’s hardly a bargain to stay when you don’t really want to and don’t really have anything that you want to do.
June 23 - “Second verse, same as the first”. Weather’s no better and not sure if it will improve enough for us to leave the next day but we’re hopeful. Wind is directly out of the West and kicking up a 3/4 foot swell which we would be motoring right into. Can’t tack in the Gulftstream, at least not effectively and certainly couldn’t make the mainland in daylight if we tried to.
June 24 - Weather’s much better and we cross back to Florida with a mild Northwest wind and 1 to 2 ft. seas. We anchor in Lake Worth for the night and have an unresolved dilemma trying to decide whether to go to Boca tomorrow on the inside or through the ocean by way of the Hillsboro Inlet.
June 25 -Decide to go inside. Have to wait two hours at the Southern Blvd. Bridge as schedule has changed due to construction on Flagler Bridge. What a bummer. Miss another bridge opening by two minutes and waste another half hour. Not our day I guess. Nonetheless, get to Boca around 2:00 and back into the slip with only a little difficulty due to the East wind coming up a bit. We have completed the trip having reached all of the destinations planned, with no injuries, no groundings or dismasting, and still talking to each other, so I rate it an unqualified success.
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