Weekly
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Fishers Bay, Great Guana Cay Green turtle Club Resort and Marina, Green Turtle Cay Tom Johnson Sound, Great Sale Cay Saturday, April 5 through Friday, April 11, 2025 68 nautical miles (78 statute miles) This week was all about positioning the boat in a location to leave the Bahamas (since our 90 days is almost up) and dodging some weather.    Fishers Bay, Great Guana Cay   We spent Saturday exploring Great Guana Cay and eating lunch at Nippers.  Nippers was a pretty cool spot

Marsh Harbour, Great Abaco Hope Town, Elbow Cay Man-O-War, Man-O-War Cay Fishers Bay, Great Guana Cay Friday, March 28 through Friday, April 4, 2025 21 nautical miles (24 statute miles) This week was rather nice with only a few mishaps as we worked our way north through the hub of Abaco. Marsh Harbour Recap As Jimmy mentioned last week, our time in Marsh Harbour was primarily spent running errands. If someone needed boat work done, this would be a good spot to search for part

Meeks Patch to Marsh Harbour in Abaco

Friday, March 14 through Thursday, March 20 Rock Sound, Eleuthera to Meeks Patch, Eleuthera 70 nautical miles (80 statute miles) Governors Harbour Friday, March 14 25 nautical miles (29 statute miles)        The trip north from Rock Sound to the settlement of Governs Harbour had little to no wind followed by some tricky anchoring in a busy harbor. Once we found a spot to squeeze into amongst all of the boats, out of the main delivery boat route, and not on top of any underwat

Saturday, March 8 through Thursday, March 13 Half Moon Cay, Little San Salvador to Rock Sound, Eleuthera 89 nautical miles (102 statute miles)   Our northbound trek through the Bahamas continues and we’ve now reached Eleuthera.     Half Moon Bay, Little San Salvador Island to Poison Point, Eleuthera Island Saturday, March 8 40.5 nautical miles (46.5 statute miles)    It was a long day with light winds crossing from Little San Salvador Island to Eleuthera Island. After leaving

Friday, February 28 to Friday, March 7 Calibash Bay, Long Island to Half Moon Cay, Little San Salvador 110 nautical miles (126 statute miles)   Now that we are more than halfway through our 90-day visa, we have begun our northward trek. Our southernmost anchorage was at Thompson Bay, Long Island (N23d 21’13”, W75d 08’ 15”) arriving one month into our Bahamas stay in mid to late-February. Our plan is to head back to the United States, somewhere along the Atlantic Coast. Caliba

Saturday, February 22 to Thursday, February 27, 2025 Long Island (Thompson Bay) to George Town and back to Long Island (Calibash Bay) 62 nautical miles (71 statute miles)   On Saturday we stayed on the boat and did chores since the wind was remarkably high and we didn’t want to get swamped with an extra wet dinghy rides. Sunday morning we had an open schedule, and we planned to walk to the Atlantic side of island. Just before dropping the dinghy into the water from the davits

George Town, Exuma Islands, Bahamas to Thompson Bay, Long Island, Bahamas Saturday, February 15 to Friday, February 21, 2025   Junkanoo Before leaving George Town on Monday (17-Feb), we attended a small festival in town. The Cruisers Junkanoo Fundraiser is a relatively new event in George Town that helps support the local junkanoo groups.    https://www.grandbahamamuseum.org/exhibits/culture/junkanoo In this fundraiser, locals teach a group of cruisers some of the dance and

Saturday, February 8 to Friday, February 14 When we arrived at George Town, we had no plans or ideas as to how long our stay here would be. This has been a nice change in pace after hurrying to get fairly far south in our first year in the Bahamas. It appears that we will end up with a full two weeks here, as we are currently waiting for a nice weather window to head over to Long Island. Our activities for this week are fairly similar to those reported by Jimmy last week. Lik

Friday, January 30,2025 to Friday, February 7, 2025 Big Majors Spot to George Town, Bahama, Exumas 63 nautical miles (72 statute miles) Big Major Spot, Staniel Cay and Thunderball Grotto   Pig's checking out our Dinghy We stayed a few days anchored with +50 other boats in the very protected Big Majors Spot anchorage. It’s in close proximity to Staniel Cay (1.5-mile dinghy ride) and the actual “Spot” is known for its “Pig Beach.”  We don’t get too excited for the pigs, but we

Wednesday, January 22 to Thursday, January 30, 2025 Nassau, New Providence Island to anchorage at Big Majors Spot near Staniel Cay 78 nautical miles (90 statue miles)   Our route from Nassau to Big Majors Spot Nassau While in the Nassau  area, we explored the eastern side of the town, and Athol Island , where we had anchored. One day was entirely spent onboard Utopia  due to heavy winds, which resulted in a very rocky, wobbly, lumpy anchorage the following two days. During ou

Wednesday, January 8, 2025 to Wednesday, January 22, 2025 216 nautical miles (249 statute miles)   The Former Cruising Mecca: Fort Lauderdale, FL Wednesday, January 8 to Wednesday, January 15, 2025 After completing the second day of multiple bridge openings, we arrived in Fort Lauderdale and edged our way into a very crowded anchorage in Lake Sylvia. Several boats needed to be fended off with boat hooks when winds and currents caused everyone to swing around in different patt

As of this posting we have officially left the USA and have entered the Bahamas and are presently in Great Harbour Marina in the Berry Islands.  Our next week's post will go over the crossing and a recap of Ft. Lauderdale and our first week in the Bahamas but for now lets go over some issues we have had on Utopia .   Last week’s post was about our trip from Brunswick down to Ft. Lauderdale, and this week’s post is about what broke during the trip and what we did to fix it. 

Friday, December 27, 2024 to Wednesday, January 8, 2025 Brunswick, GA to Fort Lauderdale, FL Departure Preparation Review of Brunswick, GA Leg 1 - Brunswick to Cumberland Leg 2 - Cumberland to Lake Worth Leg 3 - Lake Worth to Boca Raton Leg 4 - Boca Raton to Ft. Lauderdale Sidney Lanier Bridge, Brunswick River, Georgia Preparation for Departure A lot of groceries from Aldi Following the holidays and a flurry of doctors’ appointments it was time to focus on the last of the foo

(i.e., music and video) and internet update Present Update (Saturday, January 4) Well we have left Brunswick Landing Marina and after a two day overnight sail into the Atlantic Ocean we are now anchored in West Palm Beach enjoying sunny South Florida. Our next post will cover that so we had a post in the "can" so to speak since we knew we would be tired. So without further adieu... System Series No. 7 When I first started this series over a year ago, I indicated that I

Our final post on the gear we used on the Appalachian Trail. We are still in Brunswick, GA spending our time getting ready to stay several months in the Bahamas. It is likely that we will leave the marina on New Year’s Eve for the Miami area. Clothing choices are highly dependent on the temperatures that you believe you will come across. We selected clothing that could cover lows around 30 degrees Fahrenheit, to hot days in the 90’s. Honestly, we nearly wore the same clothes

Special trinkets added to backpack Okay, we will get a little bit personal here talking about personal goods we had on the trail. We’ll start with the mundane and work our way up to parts some people will want to skip. Identification, money, keys  – We each kept our own driver’s licenses, some cash, a credit and a debit card. We also had a key to access our boat tucked deep into a safe place in Sondra’s backpack. Contact solution, contacts  – Jimmy brought more than enough sp

Here we attempt to cover a lot of the little things we brought along. It is quite possible we missed a few items. Gear unloaded around the tent Basic Gear Trash compactor bags  – we lined our backpacks with a white scent-free trash compactor bag to protect items from rain, and to aid in finding objects in the bag. We found one bag worked fine for three months. Dry bags / pump sacks  – most items were placed inside of smaller bags to help with organization or to protect items

This week we take a look at how we managed our food and water while on the trail. Food Along most of the Appalachian Trail there are usually towns, hostels or even gas stations available at four day intervals, so we chose to use these for our resupply. Each time we left a town or hostel, we would typically carry enough food for four nights on trail. Dry bag(s)  – We started out placing all our food into dry bags for storage.  These needed to be hung in trees or on bear poles

Equipment used on our 2024 Appalachian Trail Hike Utopia is in the water and mostly ready to take off on an adventure, but we need to take care of some things over the next month and will be staying put in Brunswick. Therefore, over the next several weeks, our blog posts will summarize gear we used on our Appalachian Hike. Regardless of how much research and preparation is made prior to a hike, it is likely that a backpacker will modify gear during a long hike.  Most of the