Migration

The spring migration has begun. The amount of boats here in Abaco has increased dramatically lately. The cruisers that spend the winters in the southern Bahamas are travelling through these islands on their way back to the U.S. and Canada. Next week‘s weather is predicted to be calm, so our marine VHF radio is buzzing with calls from boaters looking for other people to buddy boat with on the trek back across the Gulf Stream to Florida. After that, most of them will continue to home ports north via the Intracoastal Waterway. From the sounds of it, there will be a mass exodus from the Bahamas starting tomorrow.

In the fall, the migration repeats itself only southbound this time. We are so glad that we now leave New Horizon in a storage yard in Green Turtle Cay. It is so nice not to worry about traveling the shallow 1600 mile waterway up and down the east coast, or waiting for a weather ‘window’ to make the crossing. Sometimes you have to wait weeks for the right conditions to get across to the Bahamas. One year we gave up and ended up back in the Florida Keys.

There is always the chance that a hurricane will pass over the islands, but the boat is quite secure where it is stored on land. Flying over the ocean for an hour, and then three more hours back to Glenville is well worth the risk we take of leaving the boat in the Bahamas. I always like to tell the pilots of the small planes we travel back and forth to Abaco in, how much easier and quicker it is to go by plane than our own boat. It never fails to get a chuckle out of them. The last time we flew, it was windy and you could really see the high seas and white caps from the plane. When we landed and I made my comment to the pilot he really laughed and said, "but it would have been so much more exciting in a boat!" My response? "Decisions, Decisions...10 hours of bashing through waves, or one hour of flying. I'll take the nice smooth flight we just had any day, thank you very much!"