25 45N 77 14 W

Osprey
John Bowering
Fri 30 May 2008 20:16
Sorry to have missed the log yesterday - we have now been on continuous passage since we left Hawks Nest Point at 0600 on Thursday. We travelled up in inside (west coast) of Cat Island to Little San Salvador - a short trip of about 30 miles. Little San Salvador has been purchased by Carnival Cruise Lines and some partners and they use it as a stopover for their Caribbean cruises. There were no vessels there when we arrived but the island was obviously in pristine shape and expecting company - the staff were out raking the beaches! Fortunately the cruise lines only own the land and not the water so we are still able to anchor there albeit we cannot go ashore. They are progressively setting out the island for water sports, diving, and the like - according to the pilot book they welcome yachts in the harbour as it "provides local colour" for their clients! We have decided that as there were no real stopping points after Little San Salvador we would go straight through to Fort Lauderdale from there - so we stopped for a couple of hours, had a good meal and then by 1800 were on our way across the bar and back out into the North Atlantic. The first eight hours were great and we smoked along at nine knots - then as is becoming usual here the wind vanished and we were motor sailing until daylight when the spinnaker went up. The wind is now variable but mainly astern so our speed is down to 5 knots. We rounded the north of Eleuthera Island at about 0800 and are now heading through the Providence channel for our step off point to cross the Gulf Stream for Fort Lauderdale. We had a nice call from a trawler this morning - he hailed us as the yacht with the pretty blue sail - referring to our huge spinnaker which is a blue and white radial. It is a handful to deal with so we have to be careful as it really takes two or three to get it stowed in the event of a squall. We have now become accustomed to the fact that Geoff needs feeding every four hours and have got into the habit of getting the meals all lined up in advance. He also needs his beauty sleep so we have him doing the days, letting him retire at 2100. This does of course mean he is full of bounce at 0500 in the morning when the night team are often lacking in a sense of humour! Providing the wind maintains some sort of effort we should be in Lauderdale tomorrow evening or at worst Sunday morning. If necessary we will motor across the gulf stream rather than rocking and rolling waiting for the wind to get out of bed. We have already contacted Homeland Security as pert of a clearing inwards and hopefully that will be straightforward once we get there. We will be refuelling on the way in the heading up to Guava Ils where we will be berthing Osprey at Bill and Michelle's for the next few months. Anita will be taking the first available flight back and John will follow as soon as the boat is packed up and secured.

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