Wildcat-January 27, 2005

January 27, 2005

We left Fort Lauderdale on January 26th a little after midnight and headed Wildcat over to West End on Grand Bahama Island. We had a wonderful gulf stream crossing. Winds were light out of the west-southwest and there was a 2 to 3 foot swell out of the northeast. We saw some freighters and a few cruise ships but no other sailboats. We had an incredible full moon guiding our passage and you could even see the indigo blue color of the sea. At sunrise we were about 25 miles from the Bahamas and the winds picked up to a comfortable 5-10 out of the northwest. We entered the new channel at West End and found a very busy marina with many repairs being done after the 2 hurricanes that swept through this past summer. We talked to the Bahamians about the experience and as you may expect, it was frightful. As the day wore on we were joined by sailboat after sailboat also making the crossing. We had two other Lagoons on the dock with us and we enjoyed sharing our ideas on how to make the most of our limited storage.

Today we have decided to move on to Great Sale Cay which is an all day passage. The water on the Bahama banks is crystal clear and a pale blue/green. It's so nice to be back here. We'll send regular updates and try to respond in a timely manner to your emails. Our ham radio mail is not as fast as the wireless access. Please remember not to send us any attachments. Our new address is wb2ldv@winlink.org. Any email sent on the 26th did not reach us if you'd like to resend it.

As always, we wish you fair winds and smooth seas.

Pam and Chris