Crossing from Florida to the Bahamas

 Exciting? Fun? Terrifying?  Yep all of the above.  We made the crossing on Wed. March 1.  We knew we had to travel about 55 miles so we would need 12 hours to make the journey using both our diesel engine which is surprisingly efficient and hopefully sails.  The forecast said we would have steady winds from the southwest which would be ideal, but forecasts as everyone who lives in Idaho knows are educated guesses and the wind gods just laughed at that forecast.  We didn't want to arrive at anchorage after dark since we would be in unfamiliar territory so we left Fort Pierce at 4:30 am.  Here is what is looked like.

We followed our buddy boat out of the channel making sure to stay within the channel so the boats wouldn't ground.  We also were on the lookout for other boats to avoid hitting them, but with little moon it was DARK!

When we got out to the ocean and looked back this is what we could see.  We sailed in the complete darkness using our instruments for 2.5 hours and I was never so happy to see the sun come up.  Our buddy boat was going to be navigator but his instruments malfunctioned and David took the lead with an app on his phone that he got for free.  The app had only let him set one course which was the one we needed. (We have now purchased the entire app.  It's called Aqua Map.)

This was the Raymarine Chart plotter we stared at to see where we were in relation to the land.

 And this was our depth reader.  It stopped reading at 424 ft. deep. I've since learned the water goes as deep as 6000 ft.Just when I was getting really nervous, the sun peaked over the horizon.   

Sunrise over the ocean!  These 3 pictures were taken in under 1 minute.

\We had been motoring in the dark, but decided to put up the sails with the sun.

 

Our buddy boat following us.

We sailed for over 6 hours without land in sight in any direction.

  We saw another boat heading in basically the same direction as we were, but it was a motor boat.  We hailed him on the VHF radio and asked where he was going.  He said West End!  Hallelujah!  He was much faster than us, but at least we knew we were heading in the right direction.

After 10 hours of sailing we saw land and it was our intended target!

This little guy must have been really tired because he was 4+ miles offshore when he hitched a ride with us.  

After we spotted land and could breathe a sigh of relief, we could enjoy more of the beauty of the Bahamas.

We've been resting in a marina since yesterday and we slept like logs after little sleep on Tuesday night and the long crossing.  We aren't sure yet if we will go north to the Abacos islands or head south to Freeport and then on the Berry Islands.  Stay tuned.