Change happens quickly sometimes.

After another week of cruising the Abacos we decided to catch a brief weather window to head back to the States. The weather pattern looked unfavorable in the coming weeks so we took advantage of a 48 hour break in the squally and unsettled conditions. Joined by SV Sheila, we made our way to Cooper's Town and then had a great sail to Little Sale Cay, smack in the middle of the Little Bahama Bank. We spent the night there and then, after waiting for some strong squalls to come through, we left for the States. It was a relatively quiet 23 hour crossing. Unfortunately, we ran the engine the whole way as the wind never picked up quite enough to move us fast enough on its own. 

During the last couple days leading up to our departure we had been in touch with a man named Ray who was in Miami and seemingly very interested in Momo. We agreed to meet him in Ft. Pierce, FL so he could see the boat. SV Sheila graciously agreed to accompany us so we would both still have each other's company on the crossing. When Ray saw Momo it took him all of 15 minutes to agree to buy her!  The one stipulation was that he wanted us to deliver her to Miami. 

So, we said a teary "see you soon" to our wonderful friends Tom, Tracy and Eva. They turned north towards Canada and we turned south towards Miami. 

Four days later, Momo arrived in Coconut Grove. These were long days, reminiscent of our earlier passage through these waters in December - too many hours of motoring and too many bridges. The worst part of this trip was on Sunday when we went right through the middle of "Boca Bash". A simple google search will shed some light on the mayhem and debautchery we had to navigate. The wind was in our face until yesterday when we were finally able to sail from Ft Lauderdale to Miami. It was a lovely sail and as it turned out, a fitting last voyage on our beloved boat. As of a few hours ago, we are no longer the owners of Momo. 

It has not really set in yet - especially because we are still moving our stuff into a rental van and will be sleeping aboard one last time tonight. I think tomorrow is going to be hard. We owe a lot to this boat. She brought our family on an incredible adventure, always keeping us comfortable and safe. We are going to miss her sounds and her gentle way of rocking us to sleep. Most of all we are going to miss the simple life she has allowed us to live.  She has been our home and for the girls it is going to be particularly hard. They feel such attachment to Momo. We take with us many wonderful memories. 

When we put her up for sale we never anticipated it playing out like this. We figured we would sail back to Duxbury and eventually sell Momo up there. However, selling a boat is not usually very easy so we figured we ought to see this through and we are glad we did. Best of all, we still have some time to adventure before the real world grabs us again...

Ray has some big plans for Momo and we think the two will be very compatible. We look forward to keeping in touch with Ray to hear about future Adventures with Momo. 

Goodbye Exumas, Hello Abacos

It has been a month since our last post...GULP. So here are some highlights - 

After our second trip to Conception we returned to the Exumas to meet a new batch of visitors. First we picked up Jenny and Brian from George Town and had a wonderful week of Exuma Out Island adventuring. We enjoyed awesome snorkeling, beaches and sunsets as we made our way back to Staniel Cay, hitting some of our favorite spots on the way. We had so much fun with them!

In Staniel we picked up Cassie the day after Jenny and Brian flew out. We continued north with Cassie, hitting more of our favorites in the northern Exumas en route to Nassau. Again we had super weather, great underwater adventures and tons of fun. Cassie helped to spear some giant lobsters the last day of the season. 

In Nassau we said goodbye to Cassie and then spent a couple days living it up at the Atlantis water park. We left Nassau on a close haul port tack for a 55 mile trip to Hatchet Bay, Eleuthera. We had a nice week traveling around the northern parts of Eleuthera, spending our last couple days at Egg Island. This spot turned out to be a favorite. We anchored in a small sand patch surrounded by clear water and healthy reef. Calm conditions allowed us to do lots of snorkeling. 

We left Eleuthera under darkness for the 50 mile trip to Little Harbor, Abaco, closing the chapter on our time in the Exumas. 

We have now been in the Abacos for about 2 weeks. It certainly has a different feel than the Exumas and Conception. Much more development and many more people. 

We have been slowly winding our way north, stopping in places such as Hopetown, Elbow Cay, Man o' War Cay, Great Cuana Cay, and now Treasure Cay. We will continue this slow push north for about 2 more weeks. We anticipate making the hop to the East Coast sometime after that, depending on weather. Our route will also be very weather dependent, but for now we are aiming somewhere north of Florida and south of Cape Hatteras...we shall see. 

In other news, Momo is for sale! More details here: http://momoforsale.blogspot.com/

It was a little out of character for us but we decided to live it up for two days at the Atlantis, however, on a shoe-string budget.  We figured out that if we took a slip in a grungy marina in Nassau they would give us free passes to Atlantis water park and aquarium.  Heck yeah!

We have had so many wonderful snorkeling adventures throughout the Bahamas but I always wish Scout could experience what we are seeing.  It is probably a funny sight to see - we usually end up snorkeling with the three of us in the water reporting things we see to Scout who is in the dinghy being towed along side of us. We have also tried glass bottom buckets, glass bottom dinghies and glass containers but they just aren't the same.  Scout finally got her golden opportunity! 

Glass calm day and an artsy photo-op.

Not many people get to see and can claim to have caught a real sea-horse - pretty cool!

In the famous words of our favorite movie character, ''let's go fly a kite'.

One thing I am pretty proud of is the amount of reading this lifestyle has allowed us to do with our kids. Lucy has learned to read on this trip and is pretty self-motivated.  Also, note the apple shirt and striped bathing suit under the pink panties. 

Pondering things that make whales vomit.