Suddenly. . . .

 We found ourselves in Spanish Wells, Eleuthera. The ride lasted about 8 hours and it started off ugly. It was ugly enough that I thought to myself, "This is a long ride, and it's gonna suck". The forecast data was accurate enough, it's just that it left out any additional wave action associated with the wind shift to the South, and the fact that the wind velocity was about 10 knots less than reality of 20 knots. Things were not exactly calm. 
 Upon leaving Little Harbour with sore brains caused by Pete's Pub trademark drink the "Blaster" we turned out of Little Harbour cut and slammed into 2-3 out of the North East combined with 1-2 of chop out of the South East. Not quite a washing machine, but sloppy and confused. The Blaster damage wasn't all that bad, and we had plenty of sleep, that's just my excuse for feeling rotten about the slop we found ourselves in.The conflagration presented to us was enough to make us think it was more than we wanted to deal with all day. Freedom was bouncing and rolling along at about 8 knots while I was hunting for a course we could use to our advantage without rocking our bods. When the wave action combined to create peaks we were popped up sharply and dumped into holes. But I am ahead of myself.
 I woke up early and checked the WxWorks data. The wave height predictions were about the same as earlier predictions at two or three feet out of the North East. The wind was indeed out of the South as predicted, but it was at almost 20 knots for an extended period of time over night. However it was subsiding at the time of 4 AM. Later on at sunrise looking out towards the entrance of Little Harbour, and having been here before (very rough ride in past North Bar the first time) we were lulled into the notion things were not going to be bad at all. Nothing was crashing into the West shore of the harbour entrance. So we dropped the mooring pennant and proceeded out of the Harbour into the cut. Wait a minute. We never did this cut before. Ok. It's well charted and all of the nav gear is running well. So what if we cannot see where we are going because the sun is in our eyes, the water is reflecting more of it up at us, and we can only see the obvious portions of the reef? As captain Ron says, if it's going to happen it'll happen out there. And on we went to get out there. I was able to pick out enough of the reef to line it up with our charts and I managed to put Freedom out through the middle of it. Having calmed down the panic induced by this situation I then settled into the drive.

 And on it went. On and on. Rolling and rocking. Spraying sea water. Deb had so much Bonine in her system her facial muscles around her eyes were twitching. Or was it anger at me for getting us into this? Was I about to die?

Anyway we originally wanted to head straight for Spanish Wells. However with the condition the water was in we elected to run along as though we were going to Nassau with a couple of other boats from the Royal Marsh Harbour Yacht Club. On a side note, we are very happy we joined up. The registration fees are insignificant in light the people we have met, the memories made, the experience gained, and the savings we have realized. All things taken into consideration, it's well worth joining. Along the way we all checked in with each other every hour or so. While their itinerary took them to the West entrance of Nassau, we wanted to get to Eleuthera specifically Spanish Wells.
 After a while, the winds abated, the tide switched and the water laid down quite a bit. So we began our turn towards Royal Island once we were as far as the "Hole In The Wall". This is the Southern most point of the island of Abaco and is marked by a tall lighthouse. In spite of being so distant it was a welcome sight in that it marked a significant portion of the trip had passed under the keel.
 Now on a course of our own out in the ocean we entered the North East Providence channel. It's deep there. Over two miles deep. The depth sounder has this eerie look about it that indicates it has rolled over many times like a scale would when it's stepped on by an elephant. 500 feet? I don't think so. How about 14000 feet? That's a bit over my head. It was at this point that the chop out of the South East turned into a good swell of about 2-3 feet. When it lined up with the North East Swell of the same magnitude under the bow of Freedom it shot up and dove down into a hole. Urp. But we kept going on, knowing that in reality this water was not as bad as the Gulf Stream crossing we had returning to the States in the Spring of 2009.  But to give you an idea, those are salt foot prints I left on the aft deck carpet after a few steps along the side of Freedom.
 But eventually we found ourselves in the lee of the bank of Eleuthera and the water laid down. The last two hours was composed of an hour off the bank and then the bit as we crossed the bank from Royal Island to Spanish Wells. We could clearly see sharks swimming in the clear water below us.

 But it's all good. We've made the largest jump in the ocean we need to for a while. All we have left is to get "boned" by the Devil, as we head around to Harbour Island through what they call the "Devil's Backbone". Novice boaters like us need not apply without a pilot. So we'll shout out "Little Woody" so the boning won't be so bad.