Waiting to Move...

At last, Susan is back aboard after nearly two weeks away. She was in West Palm Beach for knee surgery and medical tests. She returns with a clean bill of health and a repaired left knee joint.
We cannot thank Claire and Don Jones enough for all they did to help Susan with her medical appointments, chauffer service, and room & board! It would have been so much harder to manage without them!
This is a picture of Easter Morning Sunrise at Marsh Harbor.

We decided to move the boat about 15 miles south from Marsh Harbor to a place called Little Harbor, at the southern end of Great Abaco Island. Our anticipated easy two-hour jaunt turned into a four-hour ordeal. Just as we left Marsh Harbor, a line of severe thunderstorms struck. There was driving rain, nearly whiteout conditions, and lightning all around us. Winds were above 40mph (we were too busy to see how high it actually reached). We think we experienced a micro-burst, which ripped loose a section of our Bimini Top Canvas. We were happy it wasn't carried away. We took it down to await repair. There was other minor damage, with a few screws pulled loose, but we've already repaired those. The canvas will have to wait until we find a canvas repair shop somewhere along the way.
This was some of the most severe weather we have experienced. We knew there was rain in the forecast, but nothing like what actually occurred was anticipated. Normal rain is no big deal for us. The boat itself performed perfectly. At least on the Bahama Banks, averaging 15 feet of water, it is impossible to build huge waves, no matter how much wind is present.

This move positions us to make the 50 mile jump from Abaco to Eluthera across a section of open ocean known as the Northeast Providence Channel, with depths of 4,500 feet. The weather forecast calls for high winds and wave conditions in the channel for the next several days. Today is Tuesday, and the next potential good weather window appears to be next Saturday. So we wait.
This is a picture taken out to sea, from our anchorage here in Old Robinson's Bight, near Little Harbor, Abaco. Just around the headland is the harbor itself, but the approach to the harbor is too shallow for us to actually make it inside. So we are bouncing around here on the hook...

It is hard to see from this picture, but offshore there are 10' to 16' waves in the channel at the moment. We will wait to venture out until it settles down to 2' to 4' wave heights. Then we will head for Egg Island, the entrance to the Eleuthera chain (about 50 miles), and then another few miles to Royal Harbor, a small very protected anchorage.
We will definitely wait until we get a perfect weather forecast for this next passage!