Back in the USA!

Sunset, St. Mary's River, Fernandina Beach, FL

We have spent the last few nights at a marina in Fernandina Beach, Florida, waiting for Tropical Storm Debby to move offshore.  Despite the few days of relentless rain and wind, it's great to be back in the United States.  The last few weeks, after crossing our track in the Bahamas, we've made our way north and west, through the Exumas and then to Eleuthera, just east of Nassau.  Despite the natural beauty of the Bahamas, with their hundreds of square miles of shallow, sandy bottom waters, it was hard not to feel a sense of growing urgency to get ile de Grace back home, and to begin the next parts of our lives.

Waterspout, Georgetown, Exuma, Bahamas

It's a case of the horse smelling the barn, this desire to just be home, with family, friends and colleagues after 30 months away.  Nonetheless, we were able to get some lovely sailing in, shared a sunset cigar with friends, managed to avoid a nearby waterspout, dove some nice reefs, and tasted the power of tradewinds on the oceans, as we rode a strong Gulf Stream current up the coast of Florida to this small town on the Florida-Georgia border.  We also had a few rough patches as Debby's reach extended across Florida and hit us with 40 knot winds, but all went well, and the squalls reminded us that any voyage of consequence entails some bumps along the way.

Jennifer diving, Eleuthera, Bahamas

While Debby's center lingered in the Gulf, her reach extended to the Atlantic

But the day has come:  we leave in a few hours to round Cape Hatteras and turn up the Chesapeake, hoping to arrive before the 4th of July, which we hope to celebrate on our National Mall.  This final passage carries a special aura of hope around it, with this morning's news of the Supreme Court's decision upholding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.  Thirty months ago, unemployed, we left worried about how we would obtain health insurance; we managed to get an individual policy at a very expensive rate with one company, after having been turned down by several others.  It's a relief to know that the days of being denied insurance appear to be behind us, and we are happy to be returning home to a country where, like virtually every other country we visited, everyone will soon have ready access to reasonably priced health insurance.

It's good to be back in the USA!

Boys night out on the harbor; James, Ben and Jon in Georgetown, Bahamas