family

goodbye bahamas

erin

14 Feb 2026 — 3 min read

We (mainly Braden) spent a lot of hours looking at weather. We went back and forth for days and days and days on whether we should go, or stay. The trip to either the Turks and Caicos or the Dominican Republic would take us multiple days out on the open ocean. We prefer to be out there when the wind is calm and the waves are flat. We aren't in a rush to get anywhere and we would prefer to have a comfortable trip, so it was a huge decision on when would be the best time to leave since weather can be unpredictable and changes all the time.

Finally we saw some nice weather and had to make a decision. Then... there were signs. The first sign - the dolphin visit we got the morning before we were thinking about leaving.

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The second sign - Braden found his sunglasses that he thought he lost in the ocean a couple days ago. Apparently they had just been sitting on his laptop for days.

Once we decided to leave, we decided Turks and Caicos would be our next stop. The trip to Turks and Caicos would take us three days. I am a terrible meal planner - at home and on the boat - but for this trip I spent a whole day making enough food that I could just toss in the oven while we were underway.

Chicken enchiladas, chicken pot pie and cheesy broccoli rice and chicken

We were about 6 hours out of George Town when one of our engines started having issues. We tried to troubleshoot it, but decided we needed to turn around and head back to George Town to try to fix it. After we turned back towards George Town we figured it out and decided to turn back around and continue on to Turks and Caicos. I'm sure anyone watching us was wondering what the heck we were doing.

When we're on passage we let the girls skip school. Braden and I are always busy taking care of the boat or napping, so they find ways to entertain themselves. For this trip they did some self care, listened to music in the hammock and tended to my plants.