West End, Abacos

We encountered all kinds of weather in the four hour cruise from our Mangrove Cay anchorage to West End on Friday, June 24.  This would be our final destination in our Bahamian adventure.  From West End, we planned to cross over to Fort Lauderdale the next day.  We left Mangrove Cay at 8:15 and arrived at Old Bahama Bay Marina four hours later.

We had arranged to meet one of Lynn’s old friends (going back to junior high), Billy and his wife Lisa who were having a working vacation in Lucaya.

During the cruise we passed our friends on Scout who were headed in a similar direction but moving much more slowly on their sailboat.  

We arrived at Old Bahama Bay Marina and cajoled them into finding a slip for us (they are a very busy marina).  We topped off our fuel (at prices much better than our last fuel stop) and Jonny washed down the boat and folded up the dinghy for the passage.

We bought 6 beautiful lobster tails from a guy on the dock for $30 and Lynn proceeded to make a very delicious sautéed lobster with leftover pasta with pesto for lunch.  We do manage to eat well on our journeys!

After awhile Billy and Lisa came over and we sat onboard in the AC and caught up on each other’s lives.    The last time we saw Billy was on our Down East return trip when we stopped in Fairfield, CT.  We  briefly discussed  going snorkeling but the time flew by and instead, we went out for dinner at the marina restaurant and sat outside on their veranda.  This turned out to be the best food we had eaten at any Bahamian restaurant.  We all had one form or another of fresh fish and thoroughly enjoyed the food and each other’s company. 

On our way back to the boat we strolled along the beach and saw Scout anchored out among some other sailboats.  But we headed back to Zendo and went to bed early at 9:00 because we had to get up at 4 a.m. to leave for our 12 hour crossing the next day.