^ Contigo anchored just off Thunderball Grotto in Staniel Cay, Bahamas

If there is a Bahamian Goddess of Sailing, she’s certainly not keen on discipline. She is an Island-Time Calypso, seducing salt-stained sailors with the promise that here, in this crystal blue paradise, time is endless as the ocean and abundant as the rum.

It’s her fault, I swear. I mean, look at that picture above. There hasn’t been an update because Bahamian Calypso prefers her adherents to celebrate safe passages by drinking and relaxing in excess like discoverers of Shangri-La. But now its been long enough. As I type this on September 8th, its been exactly five months to the day since Contigo left Key West toward the Bahamas. I promised myself I’d get no farther than a week behind, then almost immediately, I succumbed to the sun-drenched urge to kick responsibility to the wind.

So this is my second excuse to use this meme…

These days, back in my beloved Fort Myers Beach for about a month waiting on another replacement mainsail (we’ll get there…), I’ve got time like Flava Flave. I haven’t updated since we stopped at Bahia Honda Park and then provisioned in Marathon Key. Not since we left the States to visit Bimini, New Providence Island, a half dozen of the Exuma Islands, back to New Providence and Bimini, then into Ft Lauderdale for a few months (plus 5 weeks visiting home) before making a storm-motivated run around to Fort Myers Beach (here now) to prep for the trip back across the Gulf of Mexico this fall.

         ^ Our track ever since the last update

Needless to say, there are a lot of stories to tell. So where’d I leave off? Oh thats right. We were just about to leave Key West…

        ^ The tired but never beaten KW flag as it is now, Sept 8th.

Leaving Key West was a major milestone on this trip. We’d been flying the blue Conch Republic Flag ever since Corpus Christi, hanging it over us like bacon on a stick attached to the head of a hungry dog. We’d goofed around clumsily, tripped over dozens of unseen obstacles, and managed to learn a boatload about cruising while chasing some 1,500 miles after that crispy Key West bacon.

Now all of a sudden, that beaten blue flag represented where we’d been as opposed to where we were going. Key West was a damned fine appetizer for ambitious salty-dogs like us, and with newfound energy we charged toward the Bahamas like a pack of restless mutts who’d just gotten over a food coma and wanted… well, we wanted more bacon.

First, though, we needed to get at least as far up the Keys as Marathon so we could grab a decent tack for the jump to Bimini. Our first stop, heading generally Northeast again for the first time since the Texas coast, was Bahia Honda State Park.

Bahia Honda has a little anchorage between two bridges and right across from a state park beach with an entrance to a tiny little center-console dominated marina that looks more like a dinghy dock than an actual marina. Naturally, we anchored right in front of the beach. Paying close attention to the ripping current and stout wind, we set the hook and checked out the impressive surroundings.

Bahia Honda is a great little anchorage between two large highway bridges running along the Keys. One of them, the Bahia Honda Railway Bridge, has long since been decommissioned and has a section knocked out to allow tall boats to enter. The thing is falling apart, and for those that appreciate modern ruins and bridges and big rusty deteriorated structures, this is a gorgeous place.

We met another sailor anchored in the same area heading to Marathon. As is required by maritime superstition/law, he was having problems with his diesel engine. I helped not-fix that old Atomic Diesel just long enough to share a cold beer with him, and the next day he sailed out through the gap.

We we’re next. We ran up to Marathon and grabbed a lucky open mooring ball not three hundred yards from the dinghy dock. We rested up just in time for a spontaneous visit from another fraternity brother of ours, Xavier. Along with his friend Wayne from Key West, Xavier (aka “X”) brought along enough Bud Light to lean Contigo over about five degrees to starboard.

We stocked up, rested up, told our families we loved ‘em, and headed out for Sombrero Key Lighthouse. We’d planned on leaving Sombrero Key in the morning, but our rocky stay on the mooring ball there motivated us to skip out around midnight.

^ I’m not sure but it looks like someone didnt like the rockin’ n rollin’

So….. I promise (again) to get this thing updated.

Truth be told I never really thought this blog would turn out to be more than a personal “travel journal” and a way to keep my family and close friends from thinking we’d gotten run over by a barge. I never thought people I’d never met would ask how to buy prints of our photos and where we’re going next. I never thought I’d see over 10,000 hits in one day on our pages. Granted, that particular post was the one about Spring Break in Fort Myers Beach complete with booty shaking contests in front of the Lani Kai and a whole bunch of promotion both online and at the bikini-laden beach, but still! who’da thunk it? I never thought I’d get so busy with beaches and side-projects over these past few months that FollowContigo.com would sorta get…. forgotten.

But no more. Next stop, Bimini, Bahamas.