It is Thursday and we have been waiting out the weather here in Ft. Lauderdale.   It has been nasty earlier this week.   Rain and wind, and no time to head out into the ocean and fight the Gulf Stream.  So we have spent the week provisioning the boat and helping our friends in the Bahamas with items they need.  The boat has some of those items so we are loaded for bear.    The weather window looks good for the next several days, and off we go.  We are up at 4:30 tomorrow morning and will take a heading for the West End of Grand Bahama Island.   If you look at your map you can see that is only 60 miles due east of West Palm Beach.   As we leave from Ft. Lauderdale, it is close to 80 miles on the angle to the northeast, but we will have a 3-4 knot current from the Gulf Stream pushing us north.  That makes the trip much easier.

So for anyone reading this there are some things you need to know about our communications in the Bahamas.   We are turning off our Verizon Mi-Fi.   Like Canada last summer, when you take it out of the country the normal $80 per month charge goes to something like $4000.   So we will be searching for wifi stations around the islands where we can tie into their system and send out our normal blogs and emails.   This will be a big challenge for Shelley as she will go through some major internet withdrawal.

We have bought a phone that is not tied to any network, an unlocked phone.   Once in the Bahamas we will get a sim card from the local phone service called Batelco.  So I will be texting you our new Bahamas phone number that we will call you from and you can call us without costing an arm and a leg.   I have also bought the monthly plan on our normal ATT phones so we can call if necessary, but our text service is completely normal.   So feel free to text us at anytime.  

We are really looking forward to these next two months exploring the Bahamas.   Our plan is to spend time in the Abacos, the Eleuthras, and the Exumas.   We may stop by Nassau and the Berries on the way back to the US.  Hopefully the weather will be kind and let us stay here until the end of June.   But if you do not here from us nightly, it is because we are in a much more limited area for communication.  I will post some blogs whenever we can find a hot spot in the islands.   Love you all.    Marc and Shelley