Is it still heading home if you live on a boat? Semantics aside, hurricane season is upon us and it’s unfortunately time to leave the Bahamas and head back to Florida. The passage back is a full day in the open ocean and requires the right weather to do be able to do safely. Unfortunately, the weather that we need is sooner than we really wanted to leave but otherwise we risk being “stuck” in the Bahamas for another few weeks. This year Bahamas customs is requiring people to officially check out of the country so we left Man O War and headed to Green Turtle where we quickly filled out the required forms at the the marina and spent the rest of the day putting the boat away so nothing fell off the shelves.

The next morning we woke up intending to only sail for a few hours to get further north and then have a relaxing day before our crossing but when we checked the weather again we realized that the wind was going to die completely off the next day which meant that we would have to motor the entire way, which is loud, annoying, and burns too much fuel. So… we decided to just keep going!

After a brief stop in a little bay to take the engine off the dinghy and tie everything up where it needs to be to safely go into the open ocean we were on our way! We managed to sail over 100 miles of our 165 mile total journey! We also did our first true overnight sail. Jason took the first shift until 1am when I woke up and took over until sunrise. Not only did we get to watch the sun set and rise from our boat, but we also got to see the nearly full moon reflection in the water, and the partial lunar eclipse! In the morning we had a pod of dolphins playing in the waves off the bow of the boat. So other than sleep deprivation and lack of wind our passage was pretty straightforward and easy!

Upon arriving in Fort Pierce we realized that while we timed low tide pretty much perfectly, the slack tide where it would be safe for us to enter the inlet was a few hours later. So we got to sit there on the boat floating around in the ocean for an hour and a half before motoring into the ICW and picking up a mooring ball at the marina we stayed at before we left! Jason and I both slept awesome!

We had a fantastic time in the Bahamas! We met so many new friends, learned how to live on our boat, and spent 4 months exploring another country! 🙂

Can’t wait for next year! 🙂