2010/2011 Cruise
Saturday, May 7, 2011, Day 223. 
We dinghied Laurie and Brandy ashore for their flight to return home to Seattle. It was wonderful to be with them, and we hope Brandy’s cold goes away soon. We returned to Escapade, brought the dinghy on board, did all our other preparation and ‘set sail’ for Green Turtle Cay en route to Florida. Of course, we left in the middle of a sailing dinghy race so it was tricky to get around them in the anchorage. See photo right.
It was nice to be underway again, 
this time a longer cruise than the close Abaco cays usually allow. We had to leave the Sea of Abaco and enter the Atlantic for a few miles to avoid some shoals at Whale Cay, and we remembered making this passage 18 years ago. See photo left. The Atlantic is much rougher than the protected Sea of Abaco, even on a calm day like today. 
We had a beautiful cruise until about a half hour before we arrived in Green Turtle Cay. A fairly severe storm came up but only lasted for about a half hour. We saw wind gusts of over 20 knots and heavy rain. We began to anchor in the middle of this storm, but by the time the anchor was fully deployed, the storm passed and the winds became calm. We remain at anchor, listening to the band playing for Heritage weekend at Green Turtle. We’ll go in tomorrow to join the festivities.
Sunday, May 8, 2011, Day 224. 
We went to town in the morning and found that the festival did not continue today. In fact the town, including restaurants, gift shops, and grocery stores, was closed. We were faced with the decision whether to just hang out all day, or leave and head to Florida. We opted for the latter. The weather is good. Our calculations are that if we left at noon, we would arrive tomorrow mid-afternoon (26 1/2 hours). We should have more than 100 gallons of reserve fuel on arrival. We hoisted the dinghy, cleaned the water-maker, switched to the holding tank, and off we went.
Green Turtle Cay
Saturday, May 7, 2011
