Day 75-76 2nd year. August 4-5. Lay Morning at Croker and on to Fox Island. Miles 6. Total miles 3688

We woke to a cloudy 60 degree morning. It's windbreaker weather!! Took it easy and relaxed, waiting for the sun to come out.

Bill then took some drone shots of the anchorage at Croker island.

You can really get a better perspective of these islands from these drone shots.

About mid morning we launched the dinghy to explore the island in the center of Croker Bay. More rock climbing!!!

This is the typical walking terrain on the islands.

On our hike we disturbed a few chipmunks, birds and a frog. The frog even posed for us.

We came back to the boat for lunch and checked out the weather. Looking at our options, we decided to weigh anchor and head to Fox Island, which forms the top of the spiral of these archipelago islands called the Benjamins.

Cruising out of the bay, we headed south and then turned east

past The Sow and Pigs, which are pinkish. There were lots of smaller rock formations, so I guess the sow had lots of piglets.

and around South and North Benjamin.

A little further east, we turned into Fox Harbor, a long narrow harbor, and joined 4 sailboats in the anchorage.

Obviously more rock climbing is in order! Enjoyed watching a family anchored with us as they took turns jumping off the rocks and swimming. Too cool for us today. Maybe tomorrow.

Sunset shot at Fox Harbor

Day 76 August 5. Fox Island

A beautiful morning greeted us in Fox Harbor.

Bill also took drone shots of the anchorage.

We set off to explore the island by dinghy and on foot. We found lots of birds and chipmunks, frogs and even a small water snake. Scaling the rocks with our walking sticks has become old hat and we easily pick out the best routes up to the great views.

Fox Island is bigger and has less elevation than The Benjamins, but still had spectacular views, especially to the west. You can also see the La Cloche mountains in the background, in the picture below.

We met Marjorie and Dave from Kentucky while they were kayaking. They trailer their small sailboat up to Canada each year for 2-3 weeks in the summer. They were kind and offered us the use of their kayak so we could explore some areas we could not get the dinghy into. Here are the shots we took while kayaking.

On our way back to return the kayak, we saw Gordon and Jen, whom we had met in the Croker Island anchorage, as they were dinghying in the area. They followed us back to our boat and we invited both Marjorie and Dave and Gordon and Jen aboard to share docktails. We enjoyed sharing boating tales and stories.

Note: Was unusual for me to say good-bye to someone who shares my name-Marjorie. There are not too many of us around.

Reflections on the Bahamas

Reflections on the Bahamas Over the past 10 weeks, we have traveled through Abaco, Eleuthera and Exuma Islands and enjoyed the hospitality of the Bahamian people. We have learned all about the islands, its unique geography - limestone, caves, blue holes and chalk cliffs; and colorful history-pirates and rum running, salt ponds and cotton plantations, boat building and wrecking/salvage. Traveling over 1300 miles through narrow cuts and wide bays to vast depths of ocean, we negotiated the islands and found safe harbors, calm coves for anchoring, bays filled with moorings and marinas large and small. This trip required us to pay close attention to the weather, the tides and currents as we traveled between and through the islands. The Bahamian people are warm and friendly, willing to give us rides, advice and directions, as well as some secret recipes!! We enjoyed hiking trails, walking the beaches, snorkeling the coral rocks and reefs, discovering ruins and ol...

June 4-5. Day 63-64. On to Cape May New Jersey. 53.4nm. Total 1534 miles.

Left Delaware City at 5:35am to be able to take advantage of the strong currents going with us while traversing Delaware River and Delaware Bay. The Delaware River goes south about 15 miles and flows into the Delaware Bay. As we travel south, New Jersey is to the east and Delaware is to our west. We are traveling just outside the shipping channel and are really moving at 10.9 knots. That is three knots faster than we normally travel, as the outgoing tides are pushing us along. Nice to have Mother Nature helps us save on fuel. The Delaware River is about 8 miles wide so there is plenty of room for the freighters and the pleasure boats. So far, we have not encountered any commercial traffic, but there is a large freighter behind us that will eventually pass us as they travel at 14 knots. The Delaware Bay proper varies from 23-29 miles wide and 26 miles long. There are five lighthouses on the Delaware marking the shipping channel. We went by Ship J...

Day 98. 2nd year. August 27. On to Manistee. Miles 25 Total miles. 3910.

We weighed anchor on a sunny 50 degree morning. So we put on our sweatshirts and drove from below as we left Frankfort. Going through Frankfort’s channel and breakwater we encountered a few intrepid fisherman and further along as we cleared the breakwater there must have been over a hundred fishing boats. Almost like playing bumper cars, but with boats. Had to negotiate a path between them as the fishing boats were all trolling fishing lines behind them. We were still seeing fishermen 4 miles south of Frankfort. These guys sure take their fishing tournaments seriously! The shoreline that we pass heading south are still sand dunes bluffs some as tall as 200 feet. As we travel, we pass the small town of Arcadia and Portage Lake, each situated on an inland lake which is connected to Lake Michigan by a dredged channel. Interesting to note that the dredged channels were originally small rivers connecting the inland lakes to Lake Michigan. As we passe...

Crustacean Travels

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