It was a beautiful day for our Gulf Stream crossing to Florida. If there were bags under our eyes, it was from trying to sleep in a pretty rolly anchorage. Our day dawned with a southeast wind, forecast to build a little and swing to southwest as the day went along.

We pulled anchor and headed west. Gradually, the islands of Bimini became a small smokey smudge on the horizon and soon we we were in the deep indigo waters of the Gulf Stream. The sun was obscured by a few clouds keeping us cool and comfortable. Auto DeViet held us on our course and there were only a couple of ships within sight. Every other private vessel we saw was headed west….going home to the USA or eventually other places like us I guess.

With everything changing daily during the pandemic, we weren’t quite sure how we Canucks would be received once we reached the US. We needn’t have worried. US Customs was great. We used the Roam App which I had previously downloaded all of our info to and we checked into the States once we were about a mile off of Fort Lauderdale. Customs asked if we were just heading straight home to Canada. We said yes, and were given the OK to proceed. Nice!

We sailed up the coast of Florida to a wee inlet at Lake Boca. Some guys on a lovely Seawind catamaran also going in, offered help into this tricky inlet. It silts up near the mouth and there is only a small space where boats wait for a bridge to open up.

Finally the bridge opened and we followed the cat in. Turns out that they both own Corsair trimarans too!

My Mom was able to see us at anchor in Lake Boca via some local webcams. How cool!

The next day we motored up the ICW requesting many bridge openings to Lake Worth. There we sailed outside again and made it to the inlet at Stuart at late afternoon. It was the best sail of the whole trip! The water was pretty flat because of an offshore breeze and we cruised along at 11 knots. Mom and family were able to see us sail into that inlet on a webcam too!!

We dropped anchor in Manatee Pocket and began to prep the boat to haul out the next day. Got the sails off, etc.

The next morning I dinghied Jim to shore so he could get the van and trailer from The Finish Line in Stuart. I met him at the park where the public boat launch was a madhouse!! Martin county was one of the counties nearby that hadn’t closed so everyone and their brother was launching boats with little thought to social distancing on the docks. Nutty.

We were happy to get packed up and on our way.

We took some roads out of Stuart that we’d never been on before. One was a scenic byway with trees growing over the road. Charming.

We took three days to get home. We slept aboard and I prepped all of our food so we really only had to stop for fuel.

We reached the Canada/US at Sarnia/Port Huron to find one big RV and a half dozen trucks…that was it!! Bizarre. The Canada Customs officer read us a statement about maintaining the mandatory 14 quarantine or face fines. No problem we said.

We headed straight home and into a whole new world.

Our Bahamas trip had many great aspects and a few terrifying moments which I will go into in another post. For now I will say that overall it was an awesome trip.

Fair winds friends and following seas.