We are leaving the safe confines of Over Yonder Cay later this morning. I’m excited and more than a little nervous about what lies ahead. The winds are still challenging, so for some of this week we will be looking for another good hiding place to stay safe. Rather soon we will be headed out in the Atlantic to Great Exuma — specifically to a large settlement called Georgetown where we can get good provisions for our last 6 – 8 weeks of sailing. From Georgetown we will either leave for Cuba or we’ll sail east to Long Island and leave from there.
This map shows a bit more than you need to know. Can you find the tiny Great Exuma and Long Island in the Bahamas chain? You can click on the map to ‘bigify.’ We’ll sail down past Crooked Island and Mayaguana and Grand Inagua without stopping, and then go through the Windward Passage between the eastern tip of Cuba and the western tip of Haiti.
We’ll sail past Guantanamo on the eastern most tip of the southern coast of Cuba–well offshore as the Coast Guard requires. Then we’ll make landfall at Santiago de Cuba. The trip from Long Island will be around 350 miles and will take us about 3 days. It’s important that we arrive at Santiago de Cuba in daylight, and I hope that we can also go through the Windward Passage during daylight. That is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. So, yes, I am very worried about that! Am I scared? Like you cannot believe! I’ve been repressing this part of our trip for months now, and now I must face the fact that it’s almost time to do it.
So, farewell to lovely Over Yonder. Here’s Bob standing on one of the greens overlooking the Atlantic. We’re not golfers, but all the greens were wonderful to visit, just for the views!
And here’s the pavilion at the ocean side beach we visited a couple of times. Can you tell how windy it is? A couple of times we brought our books to read, but the view is just so arresting it was hard to read. And with the wind howling it was hard to read through watery eyes!
And here are the wind generators–the sight that makes Over Yonder Cay so easily recognizable, with the main house in the background.
These pavilions built for meditation and yoga practice are new since we last visited here. There are several of them, all from India–just another wonderful part of the Over Yonder setting that makes it so hard to leave.
It will be sobering to return to the real life of sailing and looking for shelter!
I thought this would also be farewell to easy internet and cell coverage. I’ve spoken to both kids now– to our older son who is in Amsterdam on business and who will spend this week in Paris and Geneva as well. And to our younger son in San Francisco. I’ve written a lot of emails. But now Bob has pointed out to me that as long as there is a cell tower on a nearby island (and they are on almost all the islands now), we’ll be able to use the not-so-smart phone we got for the Bahamas as a hot spot. Whew! I’m not off the grid yet! Whew!
This morning I got an email from the friend who is weaving a lunch bag to coordinate with my sheep mug. This was a guild project that started a couple of years ago. In case you don’t remember my mug, I’ll remind you! My younger son gave it to me a fews years ago.
And here is the warp that my friend Susan has created to go with my sheep mug! The stripe colors she has chosen are all the colors that the mugs come in–isn’t that a great idea? It’s fabulous, and yes!!!! I’m excited! Susan has promised to send more photos as the weaving progresses, so I’m also excited about being able to watch this fabric grow and turn into a lunch bag!
