Back to Heading North

We headed out of Marsh Harbor across the sound to Great Guana Island and anchored in a bay towards the north to be prepped to go through the “whale” the following morning.   The “whale” is an inlet where you go out into the ocean and have a beam sea for a while.  We did not have any problems however we did some surfing coming back into the next inlet.    On to Green Turtle Cay and anchored there.   We went ashore and explored Plymouth.  It was fun.  We had lunch at the “Wrecking Tree” restaurant named for the tree where the Bahamians would bring the salvaged goods from wrecked ships and have them weighed before sending them to Nassau.  We shared one Gumbay Smash at the shop that invented them. Kirk and Stacey later went ashore to Green Turtle Cay.  I had had enough and stayed on the boat.

Stacey and I with Plymouth in the background.  We had a good time.  

Church welcoming all to visit

Walking down the street in Plymouth

Ok  so the story goes that Miss Emily who was a tea totterer made the first Gumbay Smash.   It is the Bahamas drink that will get you snookered quickly.   So we kept tossing around do we want to go there???   No one wanted a drink so we decided we would go there and get one drink and all taste it.  So we did and Kirk took our pic.   The drink was good but very frozen and I took the first sip and it was mostly rum.  We were served by Miss Emily's grand daughter.  Keepin it in the fam.

We also got an ice-cream while we were there so it was a fun trip to shore.

From Green Turtle Cay we sailed to Great Sail to stage for crossing the Bahama Banks to West End.  There were about 40 sailboats in Great Sail the night we stayed there.  We picked our way through the Indian Rock cut.   Kirk was on the bow watching depths, Stacey and I were at the helm, Stacey calling out the depths and me trying to keep on course.   We made it!!!!  and stayed the night in Old Bahama Bay Marina in West End Grand Bahama.   We had stayed in this marina on our way down 2 and a half years ago.  

Stacey across the beach from the boat at the marina in West End.

Sunset over the ocean.   Too bad land was in the way.

The next morning we headed out to cross the gulf stream.   We had a great crossing.  At some points the ocean was as flat as “golf course pond”.  We did not get to sail as we had no wind but we rode the gulf stream for a while and made great time.   We did see turtles, porpoises, fish. Man0War jellyfish and these crazy little brown and yellow birds that kept landing on the boat.   They were most entertaining.

This little one had no fear and and was with us for a while.   We even closed the door so he would not fly into the cabin as we could not get rid of him.