On Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:02:50 -0500, Wayne B
wrote:

We are once again underway for a little boating adventure, and
hopefully by this time next month we will be deep into the Caribbean,
most probably the BVI or Leeward Islands. From there we'll work our
way south to Martinique and St Lucia in the Windward Islands before
turning around and heading back north. Some of you will remember
that we did mostly the same trip 3 years ago. It was arguably one of
the best boating cruises of my lifetime and hopefully this one will be
even better.

Anyone who wants to keep track of our progress or lack thereof can
keep track of us he

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0utTAiadygIUkT4LIXeoYfKADAn2Dkz os

Right now we're headed to Key West for a few days of watching my
oldest son racing sailboats in the annual Key West regatta, and after
that we'll head over to the Bahamas and start working our way farther
south as weather permits.

We'll have some internet access along the way but not everywhere, so
play nice in the meanwhile and try to think more about boating and
less about politics, gun control, abortion, etc.

========

We've made pretty good progress so far (presently at Chubb Cay in the
central Bahamas), and have had some interesting experiences along the
way. On day 2 we were heading SW from Marco Island towards Key West
in strong north easterly winds and 3 to 5 foot waves - not exactly
idylllic, but since we were headed downwind and surfing the waves,
fairly tolerable. Next thing I know an 87 foot Coast Guard cutter
with a pair of large machine guns on deck is pursuing us from astern.
They already had an inflatable and boarding party in the water so it
was clearly not going to be a social visit. The inflatable could not
keep up with our sprightly 9 knots so they radioed us to slow down to
5 knots, which we did of course. We were boarded by 5 heavily armed
young coasties who announced that they "wanted to see if we were safe
out here." The boarding officer was almost apologetic but said that
we were the only boat out that they had seen. We've been through
this before so all of our equipment was well in order, then they asked
for our boat documentation and "identificaion for everyone on board".
Since our passports were with the boat doc, I handed them in thinking
there could be no better proof of citizenship and ID. It turned out
they wanted driver's licenses however so they could run a search on
the NCIS database in the hope they could find unpaid parking tickets
perhaps? It was tempting to tell them that we didn't need drivers
licenses to be out there but discretion overruled that impulse. At
any rate we finally got a clean bill of health and were on our way.

Yesterday while heading across the Gulf Stream from the Florida Keys,
we were startled by the sight of a 25 to 30 inch fish which jumped
high in the air, even with the flybridge at about 15 feet, and sailed
clean across the boat to the other side. It was the most spectacular
jump I've ever seen from a fish that size.

The weather has been good so far and tomorrow we are headed south east
towards Nassau and he northern Exuma Islands. All systems are go -
especially the alternators thanks to Tim's good work.