Sadly, its time to head home from the Bahamas - but, we are looking forward to seeing the grandchildren including the soon to arrive - number five. He is due early next month.
We had an appropriate send off accompaniment by a pod of dolphins wishing us farewell from the Bahamas.
Shortly thereafter I was hoisting mahi-mahi onboard and hoping the dolphins would not be enticed by our trailing lures or fish on the line. Gulf Stream fishing was productive as we caught two mahi, but one of them put up a tremendous fight on deck preventing us from getting alcohol down the gills. She was rewarded by successfully jumping back into the sea.
This guy successfully made it onto the dinner plate and into our freezer. I can now add "accomplished fish fillet-er" to my skillset following this trip to the Bahamas. I even got the T-shirt to prove it - which I will post in the next blog entry.
Unlike our trip down and over to the Bahamas, the trip home was quite comfortable except for the noise of motoring for 36hrs. The winds were light and from astern. The seas were never more than 3-4ft even in the Gulf Stream. We made it from Great Sale to Beaufort, NC, in exactly 72 hours. That's good news as the crew is ready to sign up for another go at it next year.
We picked up an unusual hitchhiker (for 100 miles out at sea) along the way home, a little yellow finch. He needed a place to rest and never left us. Unfortunately, he must have been more exhausted than we could tell as the next morning he had not made it through the night, despite the water and cheerios Sue put out for him.
We arrived at Beaufort just before dark and anchored off the USCG base for the night. Early the next morning we motored over to the Beaufort Town Docks and checked into customs. Fairly painless, although they did confiscate our eggs that we had purchased in the Bahamas. Then it was time to head up the ICW for Yorktown.
