We left early Thursday morning heading toward Mayaguana.  We had wind on the nose, as usual, so we couldn’t sail.  We were going to have to do what Dan really didn’t want to do, and that was motor for about 30 plus hours.  To cut down on the stress on the engines, we would alternate shutting each one down for a few hours during the overnight passage.  Actually when we left, I wasn’t prepared for us to do an overnight. We were going to try it but if it felt bad, we would try to bailout at another island.  When we got out there the swells were 6 to 7 feet, about 9 seconds apart, so not too bad, though Tristan started feeling bad right away.  I gave him and Tessa some motion sickness medicine.  I hate to give it to them as it makes them very tired and they end up sleeping most of the day.   We saw one cargo ship early on and that was the only boat we saw during the day.  The weather was good early on, but later the storms started showing up on the radar.  Dan did a great job of watching the radar and skirting around them.  As we passed Samana they increased.

   About 9:00 there was lightening all around us.  The kids were in the cockpit as it was hot inside the boat.  Tristan didn’t like the lightening.  It didn’t seem to bother Tessa. (nothing seems to bother her!)  I decided this would be a great time to take their minds off the storm with a movie.  Luckily we have portable DVD players and we huddled up with the lightening flashing around us and watched “The Mummy Returns” for about the 10^th time.  I only lasted the first 30 minutes then I lay down to sleep before my watch.  Since it was so rough, we decided we would sleep in the cockpit.  We all had our harnesses on.  When I woke up, about 11:00 pm, I had the strangest sensation of someone else being on the boat with us.  It was very weird.   As I tried to clear my head, I saw a big cargo ship passing close to us on our starboard side.  I asked Dan if the boat had seen us, and Dan said he had called him on the radio and the captain knew we were there.  He could have given us a wider berth.  The kids were asleep.  I had the 11:00pm to 3am shift.   Dan had done a great job of watching the radar and maneuvering us away from the storms.  The seas were still high, but the radar looked clear as I took over.  On all sides of us, the moon was hidden by clouds, but right above the top of the mast was clear skies filled with hundreds of stars.  It was so beautiful.I wasn’t sure how I would feel about an overnight passage.  We had some night sailing as we crossed the gulf, but this was true overnight.  I loved it.The storms, the waves, the energy was just incredible. I loved feeling that I had the ocean to myself for miles.  In the wake of the boat I could see sparks, like little sparkling diamonds in the water.  It is really the bioluminescence churned up by the boat in the water and it is a great reward for having watch on a night passage.  

Halfway through my watch another storm showed up on the radar.  I just squeaked by having it pass us within a half mile.  The wind picked up, but no rain.  Just as it slid past us and I was breathing a sigh of relief, the wind changed direction and was pushing the storm back toward us.  Luckily it missed us the second time too.  Dan woke up about 3:15 and took over while I went back to sleep.  When I woke up again, I had the same sensation of someone else being on the boat.  It is hard to explain but I could just feel someone else there.  The kids were still sound asleep.  I got to see a beautiful sunrise on my 6:00 am to 9:00 am watch.  I am more of a night person and very rarely see the sunrise so this was a treat.  It was a pretty red sky that morning so I was prepared for more storms that day.  Dan took over at 9:00 am and the kids were still sleeping.  Two boats showed up on our radar, one was a large cargo ship that passed in front of us.  We hit our last storm that afternoon as we were headed into Mayaguana. Dan was again able to maneuver us around it.  I love having the radar.  I cannot imagine trying to sail in storms without it. 

On the charts Abrams Bay is a minefield of coral heads.  I had to be up front on watch again as we dodged coral for about an hour.  We were rewarded though with a beautiful anchorage all to ourselves, and about 6 feet of crystal clear water beneath the keels. 

We were exhausted, but the Tessa and I couldn’t wait to get into the water.  Within moments she was diving for sand dollars.  We had a light dinner and were in bed early that night. 

Our two days at Rum Cay turn into two weeks.  We all had the best time!!  We couldn’t get a weather window to sail and by waiting longer, Hurricane Dean showed up, so we decided this was the best place to be.  The marina has a pretty good hurricane hole so we weren’t worried.  We just took a break and enjoyed the island.  Dan stayed busy fixing Kathy and Bill’s computer problems and fixing the wireless internet at the marina.  Cathi and Melanie took me and the kids to beautiful North Beach to swim.  The evenings were filled with more fish dinners, much laughter and 3 Texas Hold’em poker nights.  Dan won the second place pot on the last night. 

By the second week we got smart and rented a four wheel drive golf cart.  We had a blast exploring the island.  The island is big, but only sparsely settled.  The Montana Group bought the marina and is building a new marina and a huge resort complex.  It is a very ambitious project and it will be interesting to see how far it goes.  There are so many rocky trails to explore by golf cart and you are rewarded with the most diverse, beautiful beaches.  They even have surfing!!  Scattered throughout the island are remains of the Loyalist plantations.  It is amazing to see the rock walls still holding up after all these years.  We really feel at home here.  Our day consists of stopping at Strachans for Gatorade or water and ice cream, taking the golf cart on back trails, stopping at Ocean View for cold drinks and TV and back to the docks for the fresh catch of the day. Dan became known as the “Crab Man”  for catching the largest land crab on the island.  He did it while on the electric golf cart that Bill and Kathy let us use.  He saw this huge crab crossing in front of him and he wanted to bring it back to show the kids.  He found a stick and got the crab to latch onto it, and then he threw him in the basket in the back of the golf cart.  Unbeknown to him, as he was driving the crab was crawling out of the basket and climbing up the back of the seat where he was sitting.  Luckily Andrews, the local policeman, drove up behind him.  He pulled Dan over, saving him from a very nasty set of pinchers!!  Andrews told him that was the biggest land crab he had ever seen.  He joked that he should arrest him for catching the island’s patriarch.  Luckily Andrews had a bucket in his car and he gave that to Dan to put the crab in.  After the kids all got a good look, Dan let Andrews have the crab to eat.  He was very happy and promised to bring peas and rice with crab in it to the dock the next night.    

The island people are very friendly, and on our third stop at Ocean View, Miss Ruby brings out cookies for us.  We love it here.  Marcia and Adrian do a great job running the marina and I feel bad for the long hours they work.  They are never too busy to stop and visit with you though!  Our last night there, Brian, Cathi’s husband picked us up to take us to Ocean View for Miss Ruby’s buffet.  Since his truck was small, the kids and I rode on the golfcart with Marcia and Adrian.  The buffet was a treat.  Curried grouper, Turtle Parmesan, roast beef, turkey, ham, barbeque chicken, crab salad, potato salad, fruit and coconut cake for desert.  It was a great way to end our stay.

Melanie and Glen left first to head to Nassau then back to Florida, and there were lots of tears as Melanie and I said goodbye.  They were so generous to invite us into their “family” and share their fish with us everyday.  We had some good talks, and Tessa and Chance became really good friends. We were very lucky to meet them.    The next night was more tears as I said goodbye to Marcia and Cathi.  They both have funny stories of living on the island, and kept me laughing. Cathi, don’t ever lose your island spirit!  Bill and Kathy had left a day earlier to go to

Nassau.  They were great to invite us and our kids to their house.  Kathy some great pictures of all of us, and shared some of her precious shell collection with Tessa.  Our kids thought they were great.   So did we.  We had some great times on the island and we will always be thankful for the hospitality, laughter, friendship and great food shared by all of them.   

We had one more night of bad mosquitoes before we left.  It was a similar night as before, rain, no wind and sundown.  We thought we had the boat closed up but we discovered the kids’ bathroom window was open.  There were literally a 50 to 60 mosquitoes covering the walls.  I shut the door to Tessa’s room and closed the door to door to the bathroom, trapping them inside.  We left to go eat.  I had to run back to the boat to get something from Tessa’s room about an hour later.  I fought my way through the mosquito infested bathroom, using the flyswatter to kill as many as I could.  When I opened Tessa’s bedroom door, I was sick.  She had left a side hatch open.  The corner of her wall near the window was black with mosquitoes.  It was  a nightmare.  I killed as many as I could, but with the windows closed it was hot and unbearable.  I closed her door and the bathroom door and left them until morning.  That night she slept on the couch upstairs.  We were cleaning up mosquitoes for days after that.