Category Archives: Cruising Life

Describes an experience regarding the boating lifestyle of our travel.

Exploring Marsh Harbor, Abacos Islands, The Bahamas

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Tuesday, November 18, 2025 — Christi and Keith both woke up late, still feeling zombie-esque. In the morning, Christi did school with Keith, cleaned and did laundry. Eric was still in a lot of pain this morning. Despite the pain, he managed to rinse and wipe down some of the starboard side of the boat. Eric and Keith worked on organizing stuff to move from marina mode to anchorage mode. For us, recovering from a passage is a 1:1 ratio — for every day at sea, it takes a day of extra rest, extra cleaning, extra organizing, etc, to get back on track for our normal routine.

We went to shore for a late lunch/early dinner, mostly because we wanted to enjoy time on land. The first restaurant we went to was called Snappas, which was a little bit west of the public dock that we went to yesterday. We picked it in part because the reviews said it had its own dock. The restaurant and its sea wall, not dock, looked new and there was a small marina there.

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Welcome to Marsh Harbour, Abacos Islands, Bahamas

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Monday, November 17 continued… once we’d anchored, we breathed a huge sigh of relief. We made it! Woo hoo! We watched the sunrise.

We noticed that, unlike most of the other places we’d visited in The Bahamas, the water had a green hue to it instead of the typical stunning azure blue. The water in and of itself was clear, but there was algae on the sand, giving the water the green tint. 

After the sunrise, we got to work. Keith did a light rinse down to get the worst of the salt off. Now that we were back to making all of our own water, we were concerned about water usage, so he was careful to not use more than was absolutely necessary. Christi wiped down the windows with wet, lightly soaped rags.

Eric went out to the back deck and configured the boom from paravane mode to dinghy mode. He had to twist a little awkwardly to undo the shackles and reattach them differently, which involved bending and twisting at awkward angles. At one point, he felt something was wrong, and realized that he’d hurt his back. 

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Days 5 of Our Passage from Norfolk to Marsh Harbor, Abacos, Bahamas

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Sunday, November 16 – By midnight, the seas had begun to deteriorate. It was still a nice ride, but the storm up north was affecting sea conditions down here. If all went according to plan, we’d be arriving to Abacos before the seas got bad. Since the wind direction had changed a little bit, Eric change our course a little bit for a smoother ride.

As the day went on, the conditions continued to worsen, which surprised us. When Eric checked the weather, he saw we were in the convergence zone of three weather systems, making the seas seriously confused. Swells were 3 – 4 feet at rapid intervals coming from three different directions, and once in a while we’d get a 5- 6 footer that would slam into us hard. There was 2 – 3 feet of wind chop, too.

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Days 3 – 4 of Passage from Norfolk to Marsh Harbor, Abacos, Bahamas

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Friday November 14 — By midnight, we were nearly across the Gulf Stream. Eric was able to put the autopilot back onto auto navigation mode. Our speeds improved, and Eric moved the RPM down to 1600, where we were averaging about 6-knots. The winds had calmed down and were now coming from the aft, so the ride improved. Keith’s seasickness subsided, and he didn’t seem to be catching Christi’s cold. Eric was still fighting the cold. Christi’s cold had turned into a sinus infection. It was a dark night. The moon didn’t rise until 0200, and when it did, it was only a crescent, so it only helped a little with illumination. Here was dawn:

Friday was a much better day at sea than Wednesday and Thursday had been. The seas were calmer — 3 – 4 feet at 5 – 6 seconds with wind chop waves of about 1-foot, all coming from the starboard beam. It was significantly warmer than the Chesapeake had been, and the temperatures were pleasant at 75-degrees. We were averaging high 5s/low 6s at 1600 RPM all day, although at one point, when the current was with us, we sped all the way up to 7-knots for a short while and at another point, when the current was against us, we slowed down to the low 5s for a short time.

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Keith’s Perspective on Our Last Week in the Chesapeake/Le point de vue de Keith sur notre dernière semaine dans la baie de Chesapeake

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On Saturday we left Dennis Point and anchored at Deltaville for the night. On Sunday we went from Deltaville to Norfolk. We went to dinner at Lola’s with mom’s friends. On Monday, we decided to go the Bahamas instead of Bermuda. If we wanted to go to the Bahamas, we needed to get in gear quick because the next weather window was Wednesday. Dad did a bunch of repairs. 

Samedi, nous sommes partis de point Dennis et nous avons ancré le bateau à Deltaville pour la soirée. Dimanche nous sommes allés jusqu’à Norfolk. Nous avons mangé le diner à Lola’s avec les amis de maman. Lundi nous avons décidé d’aller aux Bahamas, pas aux Bermudes. Si on voulait aller au Bahamas, on devait faire beaucoup de choses très vite parce que le prochaine fois que le météo allait être en faveur était Mercredi. Papa a fait beaucoup de réparations. 

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