currently in:  Chub Cay, Berry Islands, Bahamas

After a very pleasant crossing of the gulf stream and the Great Bahama Bank, we are tied up in the Chub Cay Club marina well in advance of the cold front expected to come through this evening. The wind slowly died as we motorsailed onto the banks, until the mainsail was really more for decoration than for motive power or stability. The water took on that lovely hue that told us we were in the Bahamas, and as the sun set it became glassy, reflecting the myriad stars.

We'd been talking on the radio occasionally with other cruisers making the crossing, and as most of them were going only as far as Chub we decided to do the same, so we could meet them in person. This plan also had the advantage of allowing us to get some sleep; we anchored somewhere between Mackie Shoal and the Northwest Channel Light around half past midnight, and at 6 am the small waves generated by the slowly building southwest wind woke us. Twenty minutes later, we were on our way again, this time sailing.

It was a really great sail, smooth and flat and reasonably fast. The one thing it conspicuously lacked was fish - although we got two strikes they both wriggled off before we'd even touched the rods. (The night before, going onto the banks, we got a humongous strike that ran out all the line from one of the rods and then broke the steel leader! It turned out that the leader had a spot of corrosion, and that's where it broke. Got to check those leaders.)

The first time we came to the Bahamas we also came here to Chub Cay to clear in. That was our first Bahamian port, and man, was I nervous going from the deep blue off-soundings water to the clear blue-green of the shallows. And then there was a narrow channel to the marina itself, and that scary docking stuff... But this time we were old pros at reading Bahamian water, and have had a good deal of recent practice coming into and out of docks, so, to quote the book I've been reading on this passage (Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian), "it was was as easy as kiss my hand."

There are about a dozen cruising boats here at the marina - they make out like bandits, I think, because these weather windows usually close with the bang of a cold front, and the standard anchorage here is unsuitable for a frontal passage, and you have to go into the basin to clear customs and immigration anyway. (Actually, you have to go to the airport now. When we were here before they did it dockside. But Britt took the bus in, and now we are all legal.) Ithaka is on one side of us, Cattleya is across the dock, Lucia is behind us, and another boat just came in while I wrote this paragraph.

Tomorrow it's supposed to blow 20-25 out of the NW, so we may stay put - or we may move around to the anchorage on the south side of the island, where we might at least get some snorkeling in. The next day, if the forecast holds, might be good for moving south. We'll see. But we're in no rush - we're finally HERE!