We celebrated St Patrick’s day with a nine hour motor sail crossing to the Abacos, left the dock at 7:30 am and dropped the anchor at Lynyard at 4:30 pm. – 52 nm. The conditions were about as benign as one could get. Gentle swells with a long period and just enough wind to boost our speed enough to be able to run the engine at lower rpms. We were sailing in a depth of 15,000 feet and the swells coming on our starboard from open water to the Atlantic had travelled all the way from North Africa – quite amazing.
Worst case scenario based on the conditions had been a 10.5 hour trip, we bested that by 1.5 hours thanks to the sails, a bit of current in our favour and no opposing waves.
There are quite a few boats at the anchorage but lots of room. We want to try getting into Little Harbour, a very protected spot, but it has to be done at high tide or close to it, the entrance channel has a spot which is 4 feet at low tide. Next low tide today is around 7:30 pm so we’ll try tomorrow. Meanwhile it’s finally warm enough and not windy so we were able to have dinner in the cockpit.