2023 Bahamas: Nov 27th Man O'War Cay to Marsh Harbor

 The wind shifted overnight and was now blowing from the West instead of the East. This killed any hopes of sailing back as it would mean tacking back and forth using up a ton of time. Arturo, Marcie, Bowen and I elected to swim to shore (I'd talked Bowen into doing it by betting him $100 on a race with him wearing fins and me without --- I lost)

, and there, Arturo blew the conch one last time.Turning on the engine, we weighed anchor and headed straight against the wind towards Marsh Harbor, encountering rain and seeing a rainbow for the first time on the trip.

It kept raining all the way into Marsh Harbor and the wind strengthened. At the fuel dock, it must have been blowing 20 knots! I struggled to place the boat just saw, and the crew of Navigare Yatchting watched me harbor until the man in charge took pity on me, and boarded the boat and took over, revving the motor into red line to back the boat into the wind while the Katja pivoted against the dock just like I'd been taught in my certification class. I was no longer in charge and I could pack!

We paid up at the fuel dock, let the crew move the boat back into the slip and plug in the shore power cable. The debrief was easy, though they gave us a hard time about returning the boat with the septic tanks uncleared. They didn't charge us for the broken deck brush, and then we went off to the coffee shop and then lunch. It was Xiaoqin's birthday, and Bowen and Boen picked out some chocolate flowers for mommy's birthday.

We were all on the same flight back to FLL except for Niniane, who opted to stay at Hopetown for a few more days to do more snorkeling and exploration. At FLL, Arturo and Marcie joined us for pizza dinner at 3 sons, a brewery next to our hotel serving detroit style pizza. Our flight the next day went exactly as scheduled. Our trip was over.