I won’t even try to explain or make excuses…. Sheer laziness is a very potent motivator not to do something!!! We have had quite a few digs from several people lately including Deborah and Claudia, so here goes!!!!
We are on our way North, albeit a little slower than we anticipated, for instance this is our third day on Jekyll Island but David had to work today and the phone/Blackberry did not have a good signal as soon as we left the harbour….also there was a 20 knot north wind this morning which made staying quite inviting. Did I say I was not going to make excuses?
I won’t and could not if I tried catch you up with what went on aboard Soli for the past month…just a few highlights of what happened to us and what we did…
David shaved his beard on March 20th…at my request, no less, I was worried he would get home with a two tone tan or worse that CJ would talk him into mutton chop sideburns like the one Mike likes to sport!!!
We went to Tahiti beach on Tilloo Cay, twice, with David & Hannya of Dovolena, we went to Cracker P’s on Lubber’s Quarters,
to the Abaco Inn… we did a lot of shell, glass and coral picking…picked up admired and put back all the live sand dollars, sea biscuits and sea stars 
And a delicious lunch on board Dovolena.
David had his last haircut at Margaret’s “Chopping BlocK”… looking quite civilized now.
Margaret &Monica Super Mom & Daughter team.
Then it was David'ds birthday (and it may look as if he is in his birthday suit, but he isn't ...really now!!!)
It was also our last day in Hope Town, we did some maintenance, changing filters, oil to get Soli ready for the big trip, in between phone calls from nearest and dearest…
We had a couple of good squalls so the deck was reasonably clean and the water tanks full.
So we went for a last walk on the beach, a last visit to Vernon and Bobby, bought our last key lime pie and said goodbye to Rudy…
From Hope Town we went to Great Guana Cay where we met up again with our friends David and Hannya and shared Vernon’s key lime pie with a nice cuppa for a belated birthday celebration.We had lunch at Grabbers, drinks at Nippers and a fabulous walk on the beach.
The next day we went to Spoil Cay where you can pick up small shells by the bucket…it lacked a little challenge… but David found two conchs which are lovely.We then said good bye to Dovolena and headed out for Green Turtle… we had to go through the dreaded Whale Cay passage which can be impassable when the “rage” is on but it was quite tame that day, in fact, I, exceptionally drove through it.
We took a dock at the Green Turtle Club in white sound…usually we take a mooring in black sound but Kevin’s were all taken and we wanted a safe spot as there were a couple of fronts coming through.
We met up with our friends Reg and Val and met a lot of other cruisers gearing up for “the crossing”
We saw a boat docked near Soli and she looked awfully familiar… I had taken a bunch of pictures of “Mint Julep” on our sail back from Lynyard Cay just because she looked so good, never saw her again until that day, so we went over got their address and e-mailed the pics I luckily had not erased from my computer and made friends with Ruth & Dave and their crew, Chris. (we still exchange xmas greetings)
We had rented a golf cart for a couple of days and they had as well… we ran into each other constantly. We went over to Bluff point where I took a picture of a lovely mocking bird and a view of the Sea of Abaco…unfortunately we did not find any sand dollars on Gillam bay as we were there at high tide. 
And then it was time to gear up for the crossing, we found a couple of buddy boats, actually they found us, and got on to our next leg to Great Sale Cay…We counted twenty three boats in the anchorage all going to different landfalls that night.
We had supper and I tried to sleep and could not…took pictures of our last Bahama sunset… David on the other hand can, and does, sleep anywhere, anytime.By 2230 we were up and raised anchor at 2300 to start our Gulf Stream crossing…. This year we did not go the shortest route from Westend to Lake Worth as previously but opted for a longer passage from Great Sale Cay to Fort Pierce Florida.. the night motor sailing was amazing and we arrived at the edge of the Bahama banks at 0700, this was the point of no return…if the weather was bad we could still anchor, fortunately it was not the case.
Within a couple of boat lengths we launched Soli into the precipice of the Atlantic…. It was an awesome sight to see on the chart plotter the depth go from 14 feet to over 1400 feet.
The Gulf Stream is a river that runs North along the North American East coast and then crosses the Atlantic . It has a very gorgeous blue colour that I cannot even describe…. So I took pictures! We made landfall in Fort Pierce at 1530….16.5 hours after we left Great Sale.
Then it has been up the ICW a route we know well by now but we must still take care of shoals…
I need to go now as it is supper time.. the ratatouille is bubbling away and we are having a big batch of gorgeous fresh shrimps with it AGAIN,,,, well we are in Georgia after all.
G'night y'all
