Five days and two hours after raising anchor at Puerto Rico, it was splashed again but this time in the clean, clear and blue water of San Salvador in the Bahamas. It was here, purportedly, that Columbus discovered the New World on October 12, 1492. He couldn’t have picked a nicer spot!  Our passage was less significant but more enjoyable I’m sure. We ran our engine when the wind died, knew where we were going and, therefore, took the direct route, let our autopilot do all the steering, made fresh water from sea water, stayed in contact with friends and family via email and radio, were informed of weather conditions 24 to 48 hours in advance of it’s occurrence, and never once feared sailing off the edge of the earth! All in all it was a long but easy passage. “Long” is such a relative term. While we were under way we received an email from Rick and Mary on TRANQUILLITY, announcing their arrival in the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific after their 21-day passage from the Galapagos. Their description of French Polynesia suggests that it is well worth the effort of getting there. Check out their adventures at http://www.tranquillity.net. We are looking forward to checking out Rum Cay and Long Island in the next few days, as we sailed past them the last time we were here, but we’re especially looking forward to revisiting Conception Island, a mere 35 miles from our present location, it being our very favorite Bahamas island. It is there that we will transplant our palm tree that we’ve raised from a coconut picked up in Bequia over a year ago. Although we left the Caribbean back in Puerto Rico and then sailed out of the tropics yesterday when we crossed north of the Tropic of Cancer, we still have a few weeks left of cruising the Bahamas, some of the best cruising and definitely the prettiest water we’ve seen, before making the west coast of Florida the first part of July. Please drop us a note and fill us in on your goings-on, too!

Regards,

David and Claudia
aboard MA’ALAHI
5/25/2001