Monday, March 18, 2024
After the excitement of the first night on the boat, we were all looking forward to a calmer day today. The second half of the night was quite rolly, and no one got a good night sleep.
Nathan joined Grant in the cockpit at 6:45 and Dave, Todd and I joined them at roughly 7:45. Nathan set about making coffee, and before you knew it we were pulling up the anchor and getting the heck away from Rose Island and the rolly, anchor dragging anchorage.
We unfortunately had to back track a little to get out of our anchorage, and motorsailed some of the way, but the wind was our friend and we put up the jib and main sheet and sailed past Porgee Rocks.
At around 9 am, I knew Nathan would be suffering without food, so I offered to make breakfast. Fried eggs on raisin toast was what the chef was making and you better like your eggs just the way they were served. Nathan is not a fried egg person, so he scrambled his own.
The spirits were high and the mood was light. After last night, everyone is a bit tired, but also feeling accomplished and challenged.
Pretty much right after breakfast, Dave decided we were about an hour behind schedule. We all wanted to get into our Norman Cay Marina spot during the daylight hours, so we spent the remainder of the day motor sailing.
We lowered the jib and main sheet, and motor sailing dead upwind, we were making about 4 knots. Once we reached Yellow Bank, we were able to turn to the port side, so we brought the jib and main sheet up and with our motor sailing, we got to about 7 knots.
At 1 pm, I was bushed. Its one thing to be jet laggy, tired, but staying active. Its another thing entirely to be so tired and sitting around. So I told Captain Dave I was taking a nap, set up our portable, usb charging, very DINK-y fan and fell asleep for a blissful 1 hour nap.
When I awoke, Dave and Nathan fixed us all sandwiches, and we had lunch.
The remainder of the afternoon we motorsailed, with the jib and main sheet up. We were making around 7 knots, which is pretty good. We’ve discovered that our VHF radio doesn’t seem to work, so I Whatsapp’d the marina here and let Dave talk to them.
We got to Norman’s Cay at about 5 pm, and a fellow met us at the dock and helped us with our lines. We have power (and AC!) for the night.
I hustled everyone to put on their swimming attire, we readied the dinghy, and we went over to the crashed Pablo Ecobar C 45 Commando plane. We snorkeled right before sunset, looking at the plane, and all of the fishes.
Once we were back on board the boat, Nathan and I prepared a dinner of blackened fish sammies on the grill with plantain chips and grilled zucchini.
We had dinner next to a super yacht party boat and watched through the binoculors as the fun progressed to full nudity on their boat.