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Monday morning we woke up with the thought to knock the last few provisioning items off of our list, and to get ourselves fully prepped to depart for Long Island the next day.  As we were about to hop into the dinghy and head ashore, Martijn came paddling alongside.  He’d already been to shore, and had checked his email… and received word from his cousin that the lucrative job in Maine that he’d written about was indeed a go, and that he needed Martijn to head back to the States ASAP if he wanted to join the crew.  Knowing that this was a great opportunity for Martijn and one that would allow him to continue with his cruising for quite a while longer.  We knew what that meant - that Martijn was going to have to depart immediately.  The guys made one more run into town to take care of a couple of errands that Martijn couldn’t easily do in the kayak, and then Martijn hopped on board to say goodbye.  Hugs all around and Brian and I sadly watched Martijn paddle away to his boat, where after about a half an hour of prep time, we stood in the cockpit and watched him pull up the anchor and sail out of the harbor.  I cried when Martijn left, even though I know that we will see him again.  He has been such a wonderful friend to us on this trip, and we were heartbroken to know that he wouldn’t be able to join us at our wedding, but thrilled to know that he’ll be around this summer,  and happy for him about this great opportunity.

Brian and I had a quiet, and kind of sad last day in George Town,  taking care of laundry, last provisioning, and finally getting some propane.   We returned to the boat that afternoon, all chores taken care of, and fully topped off with water.  We spent a little time stowing away the last of our stuff, pulled the portabote up and stowed all of its seats, and cooked a small dinner before turning in early for the evening, knowing that we were going to be up and out in the morning.

In the morning, we got up early and once we’d gotten our first cup of coffee, we hauled up anchor and bid adieu to George Town and set sail for Long Island.  All in all we had a lovely sail over to Long Island.  The wind was slightly off of our quarter, so it wasn’t an upwind slog but rather a nice beam sail with good speed.

We pulled into Calabash anchorage off of Long Island - after George Town a welcome respite from the crowded anchorage, and dropped anchor in about 10′ of water off of miles of gorgeous powder white sandy beach.  Unfortunately, we’d not caught anything on our way across, so we whipped up a quick pasta dinner, and settled in for a peaceful evening.