Mine and Zuly’s First Crossing
While Edward has crossed many times (I’ve always flown and joined him) this was my first crossing. In a family of boaters who are very comfortable on the water, I’ve always had alot of anxiety in rough water, so I was checking the weather every 5 minutes leading up to our departure. Luckily it was Zuly’s first crossing too, so we had each other to hold and comfort (picture 2). To add to my angst, the window for our crossing was pretty narrow. February weather had been notoriously rough in the Atlantic, and it looked like we had about 12 hours of “decent” weather. As the morning approached, the window was getting earlier and earlier so our departure time was shifting with it. We finally made the call to depart at 3:30 AM from Sailfish Marina in Stuart, Florida headed toward Great Sale Cay, which at a cruising speed of 9 knots would take us roughly 11.5 hours to go 120 nautical miles. So it was going to be dark. We all woke up around 3 am(did we ever really sleep?) and off we went with our radar to guide us. And then, as we pulled away from the city lights, we realized that we weren’t in the dark at all. There was a beautiful, bright full moon shining like a giant flash light, lighting our path. This first picture below is an attempt to capture the brilliance of it reflecting off the water.
As a woman I have long been drawn to the moon and her cycles: the intentions I set at the new moon, the energy of new beginnings, the gradual shift each day, and the bountiful energy and radiant glow of seeing the moon come into her fullest expression. So it felt like a deep gift from the universe that on this early morning the moon was offering her light as we simultaneously launched into this adventure that we’ve planned for so long. It was symbolic, and magical, and I will always remember the message from the universe that I heard saying, “Don’t fear this new path, I’ll show you the way.”
We arrived at Great Sale Cay around 3pm, and found a nice anchor behind the island. The next morning we departed for Green Turtle Cay where we cleared customs at Green Turtle. We had spent many months researching and applying for Zuly to be able to come with us. (See this post for what we’ve discovered about dog crossings) That morning I had given Zuly a bath, put on her life jacket and she was ready to be inspected ;-) We pulled up at Green Turtle and Edward went up to find the agent (you are supposed to leave your dog and other passengers in the boat so we stayed behind in waiting) and what we discovered is that they didn’t come to the boat, and she cleared easily with the necessary paperwork. I suppose the point is that if they would have come to the boat, Zuly would have been ready.
The highlight of this trip was having my sister, Lisa, come for about a week. We had time to talk and catch up and walk on the beach like we haven’t had in years. Another bit of magic.
