Jan 13-16

Yesterday we arrived- officially, or legally, that is- in Nassau, Bahamas!!  It was a two day trip, and it was long, tiring, and otherwise uneventful. The first day we traveled all through the night, taking shifts. Oh, and I should probably say that we had a stowaway on the voyage as well; ex- navy captain Gerry. He also owns- and is currently rebuilding- a Whitby 42, and has crossed to the Bahamas at least 10 times, 7 which were on Whitby’s.  
Anyway, the night traveling, aside from the boredom and fatigue, was perfect. It was relatively calm, the wind forecasts were actually correct for once, and to top it all off, the moon was almost full, so it was very bright. Bright enough to see all details on the top of the boat. Now, I don’t know about the other shifts, but the only excitement I had on mine was avoiding a very large barge. We passed Bimini early in the morning, so I missed the first glimpse of the Bahamas. 
The second day- technically it was still the first day, since we started at midnight, but I am going to refer to it as the second day just to be difficult- was very boring, and involved a lot of reading and sitting around. Yet it ended anchoring in the middle of nowhere, no land to be seen- actually, most of the trip was spent like that- and it only being 15 feet deep. And we could clearly see the bottom. Dad even went down and tried to catch diner, but since he only came up with a starfish and a conch, we had to resort to good old pizza. And so past the first day in the Bahamas, as well as the first swim in said country. The pizza was delicious, I might add. Also, in celebration of finally reaching the Bahamas, we finished off the Golden Nuggets (an ice-cream bar with chocolate coating, caramel, and nuts) that we had been keeping in our freezer for this very moment. 
 

  
While we were peacefully enjoying the sunset- amazing- we were intruded by 4 other sailboats. So we enjoyed some evening entertainment of people yelling at each other via radio about the position of their lights. One of the ladies- typical shrill, high voice of annoying yelling ladies- was yelling that one of the boats almost ran into them. Actually, they didn’t come close, but since they could see both the red and green light on the other vessel because of some bad placement, they were convinced it was going to be a fatal accident. This yelling and protesting and other nonsense went on for about 10 minutes.
 

On the third day (yes, I know, it’s technically the 2nd day, but just bear with me here) we got up at a bright, early time of 5:30. It sucked. So we resigned ourselves- after we made it out of bed that is- to a long day of traveling where Gerry abandoned us and slept downstairs. Our first glimpse of Nassau was early in the afternoon, while in 3000 foot water or such (our depth finder blanks out after 300 ft., so we don’t know for sure)  and we spent the next hours eagerly anticipating finally making it. We did, and saw some mighty big cruise ships, and some startlingly green, clear water.
As we entered Nassau port, we say a manta ray jump out of the water!!!
(no time to get camera, so this is an cheap internet picture)
After we docked, dad went to officially check us, and reassure them that we had no weapons on boat- we’re Canadians, for gods sake! Then dad spent the rest of the day exclaiming his profound amazement that we actually arrived in the Bahamas. I spent the rest of the day exclaiming my profound amazement of his lack of faith. 
 
We finished off the day going to a very nice restaurant for diner, known as The Poop Deck. Contrary to the feelings the name might imply, it wasn’t that bad. The fish was good. And the bread was good enough that we had to ask them to bring out a second basket. 
The next day we said goodbye to Gerry. We loved having you on the trip with us and felt much better making the crossing with your experience with us.  We will miss you. I’m sure even Devon will, at the times when he’s not being a pirate or being paranoid about chickens.