The last ten days were incredibly beautiful as we hop scotched south from the northern end of the Exuma Land and Sea Park to the park headquarters at Warderick Welles and on to the southern end at Cambridge Cay. Such a remote location meant no cell service at all though. Zilch, nada, nothing. Not even a text.

We just re-entered civilization this afternoon as we sailed into Staniel Cay and anchored among 50 of our closest friends.

We will spend the next few days exploring Staniel Cay and Black Point looking for groceries, fuel, water and laundry. Our cupboard is getting a little bare and we are completely out of anything fresh. Don't worry, we won't starve anytime soon! We have a month or more supply of rice, pasta, canned veggies, beans and tomatos. Unfortunately the mail boat (which brings much more than just mail) was here two days ago and only comes once or twice a week. I have a feeling you better be here the day it comes to have many options or selection.

I'm getting really good and conserving water! We filled up in Nassau about 10-11 days ago and our tanks are still half full . . . I think. We don't have a gauge or anything, but by opening the center tank and sticking a wooden spoon in, that's what it looks like to me 😉. We hold 90 gallons plus about 10 more in the hot water tank. We use fresh water for four things: drinking, cooking, dishes and showering. The toilet uses salt water if you were wondering. So we conserve in 3 of the 4 areas.
Drinking - obviously by drinking beer and rum instead - just us, not Kaylee. She scarfs up all our milk.
Dishes - get washed and rinsed in salt water before a final fresh water rinse.
Bathing - similar to dishes, all washing in salt water off the back deck and then if we are lucky a hot fresh water rinse. Cooking - I haven't figured out a way to conserve water and don't think I want to.
Water is scarce and costs $.50 gallon in most places that have it, which isn't many. A water maker is a luxury that we do not have.

We only need fuel for the dinghy since the sailing has been so great. We've only run our engine for pulling and dropping the anchor for the most part. Our solar panels have also been working great, so we have kept our batteries going with that and the little bit of engine running while anchoring.

Enough for now. I don't even know if this will post on my 2G international cell coverage. If it works, I'll try to get some of Kaylee's journal posted and some more pictures.

Sorry it's been so long for an update. My T-Mobile plan is working great for email and texting when I have cell coverage, but full blown internet has not really been an option. We are now in Nassau with a Starbucks across the street from the marina where we are docked for a few days.

Our crossing of the Gulf Stream (last Monday, Feb 1) went well after a bit of a rough morning getting out of Hawks Channel (the water east of the Keys inside in the reef) with some weather that didn't move east as quickly as we hoped and caught us with our sails up in some pretty high winds. We scrambled to get the sails down and stayed inside until the storms finally move on. Once the wind and seas calmed a bit we put the sails back up and turned east. We were able to sail until the Gulf Stream caught us and then we had to turn the motor on and motor through the night. The seas were only 2-3 ft and the stars amazing so I was a happy camper all night and Kaylee got to take her turn on a watch - with assistance.

One piece of technology we have this time that we did not on our last trip is AIS. I don't know what it stands for, but it allows us to see all other registered AIS boats on our GPS and through an IPad application. We were able to see all the 'big' boats (tankers and cruise ships) that were within about 40 miles even if we couldn't see their lights. It also tells us their name, size, heading, speed, destination and calculated closest passing point. It is greatest thing for understanding what is going on around us at night. It also lets us communicate with them easily by radio if needed since they can see us too and know our name. We do not have radar so this has been a great addition.

We made it on to the Banks early Tuesday morning and enjoyed a gorgeous sail all day even though we had to tack into the winds. We anchored that evening out in the open with light winds and no fear of an anchor dragging since there was absolutely nothing to hit for miles. The next morning we continued east toward the northwest channel and the Tongue of the Ocean.

If you watched our tracker we made a minor detour north before going through the channel. We tried to help a disabled yacht with bad batteries. We weren't able to get them started but we did make some calls for them and confirmed that help was on the way. Unfortunately for them it wasn't going to be until the next day to get a tug big enough to tow them. I didn't feel too bad for them stuck on a gorgeous 88 foot motor yacht :-) The downside of the detour was it delayed us enough that we were coming into Morgan's Bluff well after dark into an unmarked channel. Using our AIS we were able to contact a cargo boat coming out of the channel in front of us and get confirmation that our charts were good and we could navigate confidently in the dark. By 10pm we were anchored  and ready for some sleep!

I hesitate to tell the next story because I don't want give the impression things like this happen very often, but here goes . . . two boats that we originally planned to cross with left Sunday (the day before us because we decided to give the Gulf Stream one more day to calm down after north winds). About 11pm Sunday night in the middle of the Gulf Stream the smaller boat, a catamaran with a couple aboard, called the larger boat (YaRiKa - a 50ft Beneteau) and said they were taking on water in one of their hulls. After about 30 minutes they could not find the leak and could not keep up with the water coming in. YaRiKa - a family with two teenagers making their first Gulf Stream crossing - told them to deploy their dinghy and they'd be there soon. So at midnight in 3-4 ft seas, YaRiKa rescued them by pulling them aboard as the catamaran capsized and appeared to sink. Everyone was ok and we met up with them all in Morgan's Bluff two days later. A very scary story with a good outcome. The couple from the catamaran took the mailboat to Nassau to go to the embassy and get their paperwork all worked out since he did not make it out with his passport. YaRiKa and family stayed at Morgan's Bluff and has been great to hang out with. We sailed to Nassau with them and are planning to stay together for the next few weeks while we continue east and south.