A Weather Delay

The week's weather is NOT cooperating, with Small Craft Advisories in place most every day.  The plan for the 2022 Great Harbour Owners' Cruise to the Abacos had been for a scheduled departure at 4am on Wednesday, May 25th from Lake Worth Inlet.  Six Great Harbour trawler crews have signed on for the two-week adventure to the Abacos in the Northern Bahamas.  Two of the massive GH47s - "Mother Ocean" with Dennis & Jan Taylor (and yours truly) aboard and "Pipe Dream II" with Bill & Betsy Buckland - are patiently waiting at their temporary docks at Sailfish Marina right inside the inlet.  "At Last", the lone GH37 along for trip, and her owners, Lee Ensminger and Karen Huddlestun, are anchored up near the inlet at Peanut Island.

Cedric and Julie Walker's N37, "The Office II", is docked eight miles north at Old Port Cove Marina while they take advantage of the delay by visiting nearby family.  Great Harbour sales guy Joe Senn is aboard the N37 "Chutay" with owner Drew Martin as they had a very tardy departure from Chutay's home berth in Jacksonville, Florida due to issues stemming from Chutay's lack of recent cruising. As often happens, there were some cooling system issues that kept them troubleshooting in Jacksonville for the better part of three days.  But now all seems to be well, as Chutay chugs south towards a reserved dock space at Sailfish marina this afternoon.

The final Great Harbour along for the cruise is Mark Schwall and Cathy Hillyer's N37 "Midnight Blue".  Mark & Kathy will not be participating in the crossing as they have been cruising the Bahamas for the past six weeks and plan to meet up with us at Spanish Cay in a couple days.

So that's the group.  Some of these crews and boats have been to the Bahamas before, some have not.  But everyone is looking forward to an itinerary full of beautiful marinas and anchorages, cool restaurants and bars, and great camaraderie.  I have been the sales director at Great Harbour for the better part of 17 years and am VERY familiar with each of the vessels along for this cruise as I sold most of these boats to their original owners!  Speaking of that, the Taylors, aboard Mother Ocean, are the only "original owners" on the cruise and I am very much looking forward to rekindling the friendship and catching up with these great folks when I stow my gear aboard Mother Ocean tomorrow afternoon.

Everyone has put off their required Covid tests until tomorrow - and the weather reports are still predicting 2' seas and 5-10 knot winds out of the south for the departure Saturday Morning.  I'll post more about our cruising itinerary in tomorrow's blog entry - plus I promise to have a few pics.  In the meantime, if you want to read a couple of my old Bahamas cruising blogs, you can find them at GH47 Sea Glass 2010 Cruise to the Turks & Caicos and N47 Spoonbill 2011 Charter to the Bahamas.  Remember that blogs typically come up with the latest entry first, so you have to go the blog archive and find the oldest post to start at the beginning.  Stay tuned!