February 4, 2000

Hello from the sunny and warm (relatively) Bahamas. It has been one month since we left Albany, three weeks since we launched at Indiantown Florida, ten days in the Bahamas. Winter in the Bahamas is not the hot tropics you might expect. Cold fronts or "northers" come through once or twice a week, bringing strong northwest-north winds (20+ knots), rough seas, cool weather and sometimes rain. You want to be hunkered down in a safe harbor, and a long passage or crossing the Gulf Stream is out of the question. Not swimming or sunning weather. The winds moderate over the next few days and shift to the east and we'll get two or three nice warm days before the next norther arrives. As spring approaches (late February, March) the northers become less frequent and fine days more numerous.

We crossed the Gulf Stream during a "window" of fair weather, leaving Palm Beach at 6 PM and motoring and motor-sailing over at fairly calm sea. There was a full moon and a clear sky- a lovely, though long, night. We reached West End, Grand Bahama, at dawn (about 6:30 AM), anchored briefly for breakfast, and continued over Little Bahama bank to Walkers Cay. We had a nice sail on a beam reach in the sunshine and arrived and cleared customs at 5 PM, tied the the dock and fell asleep.

During the night the next norther arrived with rain and wind over 20 knots. We were very glad to be tied up inside the boat basin. Walkers does not have a protected anchorage so you have to take a slip, but this allows you full use of the resort facilities, which include a hot tub and two pools. They mostly cater to large sports fishing boats-there were only two other sailboats in the harbor. The weather was cool and windy the next three days so we didn't get to use the pools. One evening a man I had never seen came out to our dock and gave me a loaf of fresh baked cinnamon raisin bread. He was from the other occupied sailboat, a 50 foot Prout catamaran. His wife had watched us roll around next to the dock for two days and thought we could use cheering up. This was our introduction to the friendliness and generousity of cruisers out here. We later visited their boat-it could hold four of ours. Peg had breadmaker on board, and Ed had a work shop that looked like a hardware store. We had a long chat and got lots of useful information and advice.

When the wind let up we continued on our way, spending our first night at beautiful, uninhabited Double Breasted Cays. The next day we continued east, and of course the wind was coming from the direction we wanted to go, which made it a tough beat, then motor sail into wind and waves, with lots of spray coming over the deck. Half way along we encountered a sailboat we had met while at Palm Beach and we sailed the rest of the way in company, arriving at an isolated anchorage at five PM, wet, tired and salty after a tough 40 miles. To be continued. Feel free to put this in the Jibsheet newsletter or forward it to anyone interested. We have had some lovely days and great times, which I will tell you about in future letters. Once here, the Bahamas are a wonderful cruising ground, and I can't get over the openess and friendliness of the people, both cruisers and locals.

More to come.