We finally made it to Green Turtle Cay and through some rather fancy maneuvering on Boyd’s part got both into White Sound, onto a mooring and then eventually into a slip, quite a story in itself but not one for now. Since you aren’t here looking at the charts I should probably clarify.

Initially the other Vagabond we came across with, Driven, recommended anchoring outside of Green Turtle Cay as the depth in either Black or White Sound (the two available protected areas of the island are quite shallow in their entrance. His draft, the same as ours, he said was too deep to get inside either of the sounds but he assured us that you could anchor at the entrance area and dingy in to New Plymouth to clear in.

Unfortunately when we arrived the wind, which had been beautiful for sailing down from Great Sale Cay made it impossible to anchor in the area he’d recommended. Driven’s captain couldn’t even get his anchor to hold and if we could have I don’t think we would have wanted to. It would have been a very uncomfortable place to try to sleep.

So we changed the plan and headed for Manjack just a couple of miles back up the way we had just come. It wasn’t a perfect anchorage as the wind was still high and the wave action a bit more active than desirable but in the bight of Manjack island it was more protected than the open water in front of Green Turtle Cay and we were able to get the anchor to hold. Unfortunately there’s no place to clear in on Manjack. In fact there are only a couple of houses on Manjack, no town or any other civilization to be seen. Someone did come to invite us to a beach dinner that night but since we were still technically under quarantine we were not able to go ashore.

Back to Green Turtle Cay, once we made it to the dock we still had to get back to New Plymouth to clear in and so we put the dinghy in and took off for New Plymouth back out through the anchorage area we’d just been through.

Let me tell you that was as rough a dinghy ride as I ever want to be in. First our dinghy “Puddles” as we affectionately refer to her, has been acting up. Well, the outboard has been giving us a bit of grief, so all the way across the 3/4 mile someone had to squeeze the fuel priming bulb on the fuel tank to make sure the engine didn’t cut out. That someone was me. Then, because it was so windy and the wave were rough there was no way to make it across without getting quite wet. We all wore raincoats so we wouldn’t look like complete drowned rats when we got to the customs office but we were still pretty soggy by the time we tied up.

Fortunately clearing in went extremely well. The customs agent, Bridget, was helpful, pleasant and fair. She recommended a nearby beach and stamped our passports giving us 180 days to visit the Bahama’s. What a nice place! After having made it across the bay and through customs we celebrated with a little local homemade ice cream from the store across the street and a long walk on the beach.

The kids and I all found coconuts that had fallen or in their case the whole tree had fallen and we each toted one back to the boat. In Florida they had talked me into buying a coconut (whole) in the store and after the Gulf Crossing we cracked it open and ate the entire thing, so this was the next logical step, find and open a coconut in the husk.

The way back to Green Turtle Cay was equally wet and bumpy but all four of us were happy anyway, after all we’d cleared in, had ice cream and scored free coconuts.