We did it. We left Georgetown. Granted Georgetown isn’t exactly our scene (so many people!), but we were bummed to be leaving our new friends. Again. Georgetown seems to be one of those places that sucks people in, and they may never end up weighing anchor and heading further south. Part of that is because going south you are beating into the trade winds. Not so fun.

Anywho, we elected to leave, with a destination being the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic really likes their paperwork, so we needed to get a zarpe, or our exit paperwork. If going to Turks & Caicos or the USA, we wouldn’t need this piece of paper. $75 and two dinghy trips to town later, we were legally cleared out of the Bahamas with a piece of paper to prove it.

We did an overnight passage to Crooked Island, and were pumped that there were three kid boats there; two of which we had met in Palm Beach. Yay!

The beach was gorgeous in typical Bahamas fashion. We were lucky enough to see some flamingos flying (the photo was blurry) and had a great time doing a dinghy float and swim in a nearby mangrove tidal river.

As our weather window was approaching for us to depart to the Dominican Republic, our mentors strongly urged us to break up the trip and go to Turks and Caicos, despite the fact Lily hadn’t received approval from the department of agriculture. Turks & Caicos doesn’t have rabies, and they intend to keep it that way. There are horror stories about pets being euthanized if the agents don’t like your paperwork. We spoke to another family (thank you SV Biscuits!) who had just checked in with their dog, and they said no one asked about the dog declared on their paperwork, and another family had experienced the same the day before. So we crossed our fingers and pivoted to Turks and Caicos.

Another overnight passage was made, but this time we were following the three other kid boats and there were approximately seven other boats sailing around and behind us. That was our first overnight as a group, and it was really nice to have all the other boats out there just in case.

Through the magic of motoring versus sailing (we motored almost the whole way, the others are more experienced sailors and they motorsailed or alternated motoring and sailing the whole trip), we arrived first of the kid boats and third out of the herd of boats. And this is when we discovered that our charts are not good for Turks and Caicos. It appeared as though the boat in front of us was going to run aground, at least according to our charts. So we hailed them on the radio to ask their depths as our charts said 1-3 feet where they are. 10-14 feet, they said. Hmm. Another sailboat came in front of us and we followed them in. Then went on our way to the marina for docking and checking in. Unfortunately, despite a rising tide and entering the marina channel about an hour after us, a sister ship (same manufacture model) hit something trying to come into the channel, and the other boats aborted entering the marina. As we were already on the dock and the tide was now falling, we elected to stay. We waited hours for customs and immigration to show up, but they finally did, we paid our money, and were granted a stay of up for 7 days in Turks and Caicos. Any longer than that and we would have to buy a month long cruising permit for $300 additional dollars.

As we were at the marina and there was precious little nearby, we rented a car for the following day so we could dive around and see some of the island. We went souvenir shopping, had lunch, then approximately $10 per scoop ice cream at a place called Giggles, and then took the car to Turk Brewery, to see their brew house. To be honest, we expected something like Wolf Hills, Chris’ old brewery, but it was actually huge! It was fun to see their set up and know that they are using the same malt that Wolf Hills Brewing Co used. Our last stop with the car was the IGA grocery. It was like walking into an American grocery store! Oh my goodness the selection! The brands! The prices! (The prices being high, not low) We stocked up on vegetables and snacks for our upcoming passage to the Dominican Republic, then went back to Two Fish for the evening.