I had a really cool experience and a really scary one today. (read to the end for a plot twist) I had a guy message me and ask how the anchorage I was at was for protection. (he saw my live location) i warned him that it was not protected at all and super rolly. He thanked me and we discussed our plans for the cut. He offered to buddy boat across the passage with me and even go through the cut first and radio to me the conditions after…. and isn’t that so nice?! Anyways we met up and cruised together in calm conditions about 2 hours after an insane squall came through. The cut was no big deal and super calm, we realized we both were continuing the same way. Off in the distance all of the sudden the skies were grey and i smelt the rain coming (florida girl core). I was cruising at 5.5 kts and as soon as the storm hit us i immediately dropped to 0.6kts!!! The winds were blowing against us, swell picked up and had several crashes over the bow, pelting rain, thunder and the worst… lighting all around. The storm lasted for what felt like forever but was probably 30-45 mins. I was glad to have Paul there with me, we stayed super close to each other and just rode it out. Although we were both solo it felt like we had someone else with us and made it feel a little bit safer. Now here’s the crazy part…. I was about a mile from the anchorage i was heading towards, the storm had just started letting up but still coming down and all the sudden i see a DINGHY coming across our bow. I began filming and thinking what in the heck is this person doing out in these conditions…. As the dinghy got closer and closer a million thoughts are going through my head and then i realize ITS MY FRIEND ALFRED. This psycho saw my live track on the app where I was getting spun around and barely moving and came out to check on me🫶🏻. Although i’m solo right now I feel very blessed to have people who care and check in (even in absolutely crazy ways😅) and super thankful for this app on bringing sailors together ⛵️🙌🏼🩷

oof. a tough one. I left marsh harbour with the goal of sailing to green turtle. The first hour or so of the trip was great. just sails ups, cruising bout 3.5 kts… not getting there fast but getting there! Then the squalls hit… wind was coming from every direction, pouring rain. no biggy, i turned on the motor and kept cruising. As I got to Don’t rock passage the swell picked up and was going to make for a rough but doable cross over the sandbar… that was until 7ft, 6ft,5ft,4ft,3ft… luckily I draft less than that so no issue, however with the swell i was concerned of hitting bottom while bouncing around so i made the tough decision to turn around. This brought its own set of challenges now going head into the swell which sadie didn’t love. On top of that we have been having an issue where our sail is getting caught and wrapped around the bottom of the furler with the only way of untangling is completely pulling out all the lines and rerunning them which is obviously terrible while the winds blowing and underway. The last two times this has happened i’ve been able to pull it tight enough to stay until i got anchored. This time though… not so lucky the wind caught it and started flapping all around getting tangled even more. I put on auto pilot and went to the bow to handle this situation, the autopilot couldn’t keep up and sadie was getting pushed sideways, I ran to the back of the boat to steer and realized we had been pushed so far sideways we were about to be on a wreck and another sandbar. I quickly steered us away and just wrapped limes around the sail to hold it down. I’m suprised it survived the 30kt gusts but it did until I was able to get into the nearest anchorage.. that had zero protection. To add onto all the stress of the day already- as i was pulling into the anchorage the engine died 3 times. I’m sure I would’ve handled this better with more experience or with the help of someone else but i’m proud of myself for staying calm (i didn’t even cry once.. 🤣🤣) and figuring it out.

Motor to Marsh for fuel and water then going to carry on north.. hopefully 😅 this back and forth is getting old. Got anchored no issues, couldn’t get fuel because the tide was so low. Will retry in the morning.

hop and a skip back over to hope town, fishing in the Elbow Reef Classic tournament tomorrow morning! Easy motor and anchor back in front of the lighthouse! Gosh these views don’t get old

Left Hatchet Bay after a loud night in the anchorage.. I slept like a rock (as usual) but poor Grace was kept up til 3am by the local bar blaring music. The protection in this bay is fantastic but other than that I don’t really see the appeal of this anchorage. Anywhoooo, we departed to head to queens bath and then to hit current cut on the outgoing tide. However when we got to the glass bridge anchorage it was super calm so we decided to spend the night instead of rushing to see everything in just an hour. We had such a fun day here and were able to anchor super close to shore. We just paddled into shore, went over to queens bath, then walked to the glass bridge and then impulsively decided to hitch hike all the way to the sapphire blue hole. We ate at trees bbq, a random backyard bbq station in the trees.. of someone’s literal backyard but boyyyy was it delicious and such good prices. We then popped into a local bar for a kalik and to eat our food, from there we hitchhiked all the way back. We are really leaning into everything each settlement has to offer and having more fun everyday!

Quick trip to hatchet bay after a nice relaxing stay in governors harbor. After all the hustle and bustle of the Exumas it was a welcomed change of pace in Eleuthera! My phone, computer and watch all broke so that’s quite the bummer, we spent the morning with a local police man turned electronic repair man on his day off trying to fix them but with no success. Now I’ll really be remote lol. The trip was a straight shot and extremely smooth, although not a lick of wind…. no really, maybe 3 kts of gust every now and then & boy was it toasty. Threw out a couple lines to troll over the banks and caught a tasty cero mackerel and a not so tasty barracuda, it was quite the thrill. We will probably hang out here for a day or two so I can get over to surfers beach and finally put this board to use 🏄‍♀️🏄‍♀️

wooooo, what a day! Started with a 3:15 am wake up call to make it to Wax Cay Cut at slack. It was pretty sketchy navigating through the rocks and rolly waves to get to the cut, then once in it boy was it rough. x10000 because we couldn’t see where the waves were coming from and were just getting thrown all around. Once we made it through there we motored for a couple hours til sunlight through some pretty rolly swells 3-5 ft 2-3 secs i would guess. Wind angle wasn’t entirely favorable so we were pretty much sideways against the waves making it even worse, but we put up the sails and it felt a lot better. I went to take a nap and was awaken by Grace frantically telling me that “somethings going on with the fishing pole there’s almost no line left on the reel” LOL i jumped up so fast- initially worried i left the bail open. Began reeling that in for the next 30 mins with a mahi on the end! We were SO stoked, this was our first one of the trip! We manifested this crossing would be when we caught one and we did! We sailed for id say 3/4 of the trip which is super great for us as we are still learning. We made it into Governors Harbor just before sunset, got anchored and ready for a long night of sleep and an easy going day tomorrow, along with our fish tacos for dinner tomorrow night 🤤🤤. (last pic is fish blood on my face blending in with my freckles 🤣🤣)

Anchored at Obriens for a night, as we were sitting around I noticed a big blob in the water. We assumed it was a shark but I wasn’t fully convinced so i jumped in the dinghy to investigate, it turned out to be a huge eagle ray! I jumped in and swam with him for a bit it was so magical. We are currently inside the Land N Sea park and it’s so vibrant and full of life unlike anywhere else we’ve been so far. We woke up and went to snorkel the Aquarium and that too was absolutely stunning. We left on a journey to Warderick Wells and as we were going in we had a change of plans to skip on by and continue to Shroud Cay. As we were coming into Shroud we motored through a big yacht anchorage and of course at that time the sail got stuck😅 I was taking a little siesta and Grace woke me up, I ran out and we gave all of those super yachts a good show of me looking crazy trying to get it untangled…. #newbiestatus. Not sure how we managed to get the sail stuck like that butttt uhh yeah still learning 🤣 Then we continued on and anchored just slightly north of where the chaos ensued. We are excited to check out all that’s around here!

Rocky Dundas was super cool- we went at slack high tide but still were able to swim down under the rocks and get into the cave. We checked those out and then dove on some rocky areas outside our anchorage just outside the Land n Sea park- didn’t get anything. We pulled anchor and headed north to Obriens Cay to check out The Aquarium. Coming in the cut was roughhhh, waves coming every which way, plus we were towing the dinghy with the outboard on and was just a rough ride. Shortly after we got anchored I kept noticing a huge dark spot swimming off to the side of us so I jumped in the dinghy to go explore and it turned out to be a massive spotted ray! I jumped in and swam beside him and it was SO magical. I’m very excited to dive the Aquarium tomorrow!

Went to Rachels Bubble Bath- it’s SO beautiful there. The baths are so much fun, the best way to describe it is the feeling you get when you take the first sip of a soda and the carbonation hits your throat- that’s the same feeling your body gets when the waves crash over the rocks and create the bubbles. Now off to dive off Fowl Cay hopefully get some dinner before we renter the Land n Sea park. Then dinghy over to the rocky dundas caves!

Quick little jaunt north about a mile. Nice slow morning, i worked out- Grace pumped out the bilges (also a workout 😅) then pulled anchor and motored north to anchor in front of the bubble bath. We will probably just spend the afternoon here and continue bopping north slowly. Loving these slow days and short sails🫶🏻⛵️🇧🇸 Also- please take a gander at the photos because Hadley Mae is so happy and cute 🐶

Made the quick jump north to Compass Cay. We put out the sails and it took some playing around before getting them right. (go grace!) Sailed for about 45 mins and then motored the rest of the way. We cut across a major sandbar to test out our draft, and depth finder abilities LOL. Grace said “that was a thrill” We watched the numbers drop drop drop down to 2.9 ft which was plenty of room for us. We lost more of our group today so it’s just us and the Pasha now. Hopefully we will meet back up with Waverly in the next couple days. As we were pulling into this anchorage we saw a waterspout just out in front of us. 🌪️

Quick morning sail to Big Major. Another day of no motor sailing! We’ve been having perfect winds and getting to practice our sailing which has been fun. Another group sail and anchor- loving these slow pace short days with the crew 🩷 We will hang out here in staniel for a couple days for the little blow coming in and then continue north to explore more of the Exumas!

Pulled anchor around 7:30 am and took off. Sadie can run the back side of the islands but unfortunately no one else in our group could so we split up. We all made great time and pulled into Oven Rock anchorage right about the same time. We had a quiet and quick sail up. We worked more on our sailing and turned the engine off again today! We really are becoming sailors 😉😅

We left georgetown this morning after a looonggg few weeks. Today was our first FULL sail, aka no engine at all. Very proud of us, we are still learning so much and sailed the whole way here, at a very great speed too! Buddy boating with three other boats and bopping around up the exumas! Very excited for what’s to come ⛵️

Sea people hail for beach fire in Georgetown 🙌🏼 got to finally meet some online friends, and make some new ones 🔥🤙🏼⛵️