Spanish Wells to Royal Island West

This morning we dropped our mooring lines and left the Spanish Wells harbor to sail seven miles west to Royal Island. We opted to drop our anchor at the west end of the Royal Island rather than the inner harbor we visited last fall.  Since we don’t plan to leave this area until tomorrow afternoon, our motivation to leave Spanish Wells was mostly a desire for different scenery. We did appreciate the ease of going ashore while we were on the mooring ball. Yesterday we walked across the island to the beach on the N side. Since it was low tide the sandbar extended for quite a long distance. If you zoom way in you can see kite boarders in the distance. 

We enjoyed looking at the colorfully painted buildings in town. 

Today’s walk took us past the Spanish Wells Yacht Haven where we saw a sailboat crammed in next to a large motor yacht. The only time I would appreciate being next to a boat that big was if we needed it as a windbreak. 

When we leave here tomorrow afternoon we plan to sail overnight to Lucaya, Grand Bahama. From there we will be looking for a weather window to cross to the United States. Yes, it is awfully early to consider going home—where it is currently 43°, Brrrr!—but we are aiming to be home by the end of March. We have plans to be in Indiana in early April to watch the eclipse with my friends from grad school at Purdue (whom I haven’t seen for 40 years!) and we would like to be able to drive there from home. It would take us seven days to sail home if we had a weather window that long. We are lucky, though, to get weather windows as long as four days and we often have to wait in port as long as ten days for the next weather window. That is why we are leaving so early. 

To prepare for leaving the warm Bahamas we have switched out bathing suits for warmer clothes and we will be putting up the enclosure panels tomorrow.