Although we had planned to stay another week or so, it looked like the coming week had several good days for crossing the Gulf Stream.

Since weather/wind is our travel agent, we decided to take advantage.  Also getting closer to April would mean more chance of thunderstorms.

So we left Green Turtle Cay Sunday afternoon for a short 3-hour ride to Cooperstown, the next decent anchorage we could see.

It’s not a tourist or cruiser stop, looked like a lot of poverty, but the people seemed happy.

We were close to a wall and Ed worried about it all night, so neither of us slept much.

We woke up early and pulled up the hook, ready for a fairly long day sail to Mangrove Cay, another anchorage.

This one, however, was 11 hours away.

The good news is we had great winds and sailed almost the whole time, getting over 7 knots in the morning with no motors.

The bad news was the afternoon ride got pretty choppy and uncomfortable.

We were pretty tired when we pulled into Mangrove Cay, dropped the hook, ate pasta and went to bed.

At dawn we took off for West End, our final destination before crossing back.  

We called to get into the marina, but, alas, there was no room at the inn.

Our trusty Active Captain app has reviews on all the anchorages and marinas, written by cruisers.

We thought about anchoring at West End but the reviews said they had seen anchors drag.

Nope to that.

Ed said we could go to Freeport and get in there.  Or we could start across the ocean and head back now.

By then it was about 1pm, meaning if we crossed we wouldn’t get there until midnight or later.

We would have to motor the whole way, wind in our nose.

We headed out the cut and immediately saw choppy seas ahead. Nope to that idea too.

So we reluctantly headed toward Freeport, another 3-4 hours away, and further south than we had wanted to be.

After about mile or so, we saw a small cat turn in front of us and head toward shore.  

Where are they going? We both asked, looking at the chartplotter which showed nothing.

Ed decided to hail them on the radio and ask where they were headed.

The Canadian lady on Party of Two said it was a man made canal going into a private development that went bankrupt and never happened.

Ed asked if they wanted company; she said sure come on in, the price is right!

Free of course.

It was a deep, 15 foot canal that went several directions.

We dropped the hook on the longest rode we had ever used, probably 90′ total with the chain.

Calm as could be behind a wall. 

And Ed paddled Ziggy ashore by dinghy to do her business.  After more than 2 days on the boat she was grateful.

By the time we grilled grouper and enjoyed drinks in the cockpit that evening, there were 4 more boats there.

We were ecstatic to have discovered this little hole, saving us 6 hours of time, not to mention fuel, going to Freeport and back up.

We celebrated a little too much, but all was well and we felt lucky.

Today we got the slip in Old Bahama Bay marina at West End after all. Lots of big yachts here, going to and from Florida.  Of course they get there quicker!

Today we are getting some more gas, water and doing laundry.

We are planning to leave at 5 am tomorrow – Thursday – and head across the ocean, hopefully arriving at St Lucie or Ft Pierce before evening.  

We will see which inlet to use based on our speed – Gulf Stream adds 2-3 knots – and how tired we are.

Winds are to be light and variable out of the south/southwest.

We have no beer or wine to celebrate when we get across tomorrow evening though.

Guess we will toast our bottled water!