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.