Tuesday, February 10 – First thing this morning, Eric and Keith pulled up anchor and did a passage to Georgetown. Tiki Tour and Zimovia also went. It was pretty windy, and the sailboats put out their spinnakers. Eric and Keith held a sheet in front of the boat to pretend they were sailing, too. The passage was pretty good overall because the wind was coming from the back and it was following seas. But when it came time to enter Elizabeth Harbour, they had to make a turn, putting the waves on their beam. The big waves made the conditions uncomfortable while entering the harbor. While it was by no means rough compared to other places we’ve been, it was rough by Bahamaian standards. All three boats dropped anchor in the southern part of the harbor, by Sand Dollar beach.

Keith went to the beach on the ocean side and played in the big waves with Tiki Tour and Zimovia, then went over to Zimovia to hang out later in the day. Eric did laundry and watched the sunset.

Meanwhile, in the evening, Christi’s caught a red-eye flight to Baltimore, which left from the new terminal. The terminal was again mostly empty, which made it easy to find comfortable seating while waiting to board. Her flight to Baltimore was uneventful, but she didn’t sleep at all.

On Wednesday, Eric and Keith got up at crack of dawn to head to Staniel Cay to pick Christi up. The plan was to spend the night in Staniel Cay, then continue on to The Ragged Islands the next day. Here was a shot of the anchorage taken as they were getting ready to go — Kosmos was surrounded by Nordhavns!

They pulled up anchor at 0630. The start of the passage was a bit wavy and, while not uncomfortable, wasn’t exactly comfortable, either. But the conditions improved as the day went on. It was actually better conditions in the ocean than in the lagoon, so Eric utilized the Dotham cut at Blackpoint to go out into the ocean. The timing was great as it was slack tide, so there was almost no current while going through the cut. Utilizing the cut was win-win, because it also meant he didn’t have to navigate through the narrow channels on the lagoon side of Staniel Cay. The photo below was taken going through the Dotham Cut. Kosmos rolled up 8600 hours on the engine on the passage.

Meanwhile, Christi caught a connecting flight to Ft. Lauderdale, where she again got no sleep. She hailed a ride-share to take her to the small plane airport where her flight to The Bahamas was booked out of. The ride-share driver had difficulty finding the Maker’s Air hangar. The address listed was the edge of the airport, and they drove around the airport for a long time with no luck. They finally pulled over and asked someone for directions. He told them to go to the other end of the airport, where they found the hangar exactly where he said it would be. Christi was thankful that she’d had a long layover. Even with getting lost, there was still plenty of time before her flight left.

We should note that Maker’s Air charged for all luggage and carry-on items by weight, including purses and snacks for the flight. The first 40-pounds was included in the ticket price, the rest was $2 per pound. Thanks to the expensive luggage fees, Christi had brought little with her to/from San Diego.

It was another sunny day and the flight was again beautiful. This was looking down on the airport that the flight had left from.

Looking back at Ft. Lauderdale.

This time the layover was in Andros, so Christi got to see different scenery than she had on the first flight. Here was Andros as the plane was coming in for a landing.

The Andros airport was just as tiny as the Chub airport. Christi had expected a few passengers to jump off and then they’d continue on to Staniel Cay, where the remaining passengers would disembark and go through customs and immigration. So she was surprised when she found out that everyone on the plane was going to Staniel — the purpose for this stop was for customs/immigration because Staniel didn’t have such services. Uh oh.

The visas we’d gotten upon arrival in Marsh Harbour were set to expire in 5 days. Christi was going to get a new visa today upon re-entry. The plan had been for Eric and Keith to anchor Kosmos, meet Christi at the airport when her flight landed, and all get new visas together at the same time. Since Christi had booked flights in and out of the country via Staniel Cay, we’d assumed that Staniel Cay was a port of entry. It had never crossed our minds that it might not be. Christi texted Eric that we had to figure out how to get Eric and Keith’s visas renewed since it couldn’t be done at Staniel.

Via text, we formulated a new plan: Eric would pick Christi up from the docks where she would literally jump aboard while the boat was still moving, we’d go as far south as we could before dark, anchor for the night, then continue on to Georgetown in the morning, hopefully arriving before the immigration office closed.

The stop in Andros was uneventful. Christi asked for an extended visa and the immigration officer gave her 180 days, no charges. After everyone was cleared into the country, the plane continued on to Staniel Cay. This was taken as the plane was leaving Andros.

The water was mesmerizing to look at from the plane — so clear and colorful.

This was taken as we were descending into Staniel Cay.

Christi walked from the airport to the Staniel Cay Marina, where she waited on the docks for Kosmos to arrive. She bumped into a lady named Becky that we’d met in Annapolis, and they had a nice chat while waiting. At about 1600, Eric pulled up to an empty spot on the dock, Christi handed her luggage to Keith, then jumped aboard and we pulled away without ever stopping. Becky commented that we’d clearly done this before.

Eric had been hoping to make it as far as Blackpoint before sunset, but since conditions were good, we were able to make it even farther. We went to an anchorage called Little Bay. We dropped anchor near the castle.

Christi hadn’t slept in two days and was exhausted. Worried about jet lag, Christi forced herself to stay up until after the sunset.

But she passed out not long after the sun went down. Here was a dusk shot taken right before she went to sleep.