Eleuthera - Little Harbor, Abacos

The trip to Little Harbour, Abacos is about 60Nm from Current Settlement. This can be a day trip if speed is maintained above 5.5 knots. But it also means leaving early, not having the sun high enough to read the water, and arrive late in the afternoon, with the evening sun in the eyes when trying to make the turn in the reef of Little Harbour. We did leave early and had just enough wind to make 6-6.5 knots for the first half of the day. Later the winds continued to weaken, we tried the gennaker for an hour, after which the winds became too light to maintain a boat speed of 5 knots. So we motor-sailed for a couple of hours after which the winds came back. We made it to the cut at Little Harbour by 16:00 and were able to see the reef and rocks, and easily made it through.

We have been asked why we are "rushing" back North. We aren't really rushing, but we did want to have a few good sailing days. Our way South was hampered by not so good weather, often South and West winds, when anchorages with protection are difficult to find. On the way South, we also missed some nice spots for snorkeling due to winds and waves. So we are visiting a few spots we missed, like Warderick Wells. For the last week we had some of the good trade winds, East winds everyday, first it was rather fresh, 20-25 knots, slowly diminishing, as today we mostly had around 10 knots. We now had some memorable sailing days. But for the next several days, the forecast says "light and variable" which equates to little sailing potential. Time for snorkeling and some bar hopping.

We also have a deadline to be North of Savannah by June 1st for insurance reasons. If we would have the worst weather, we could beat across the gulfstream and go up the ICW through Florida and Georgia, this will take about 2 weeks and we need to account for this. In 8-10 days from now we will know better, we hope for a direct sail from the NW-Abacos to South Carolina, but we do want a comfortable sail which will take about 3 days + 2 nights.