Hi HOW Folks, Regrettably I must inform you that we have cancelled our Bahamas Cruise. We were at anchor in Miami for 2 weeks waiting for the right weather window. It got cold and I (Roger) got a cold. It got down to 45 degrees a couple of nights and we have no heater aboard Endless Summer. I got some kind of upper repertory problem when we were in the Exumas in 1999/2000 and I had to fly back to the US to get well. I have always been slow to recover from things like that. It can be miserable to be sick and on a boat at anchor. Been there - don't want to be there again! So on Monday December 22nd we decided to return to Ft Lauderdale the next day. We left Miami at about 8 AM and we tied up at the dock we rent at about 2:30 PM. We will leave Endless Summer fueled and watered up just in case there is some kind of winter weather miracle and we get forecast for several calm days in a row. As we get deeper into winter, the cold fronts get stronger and colder and more frequent. The weather windows get shorter too. It takes about 24 hours to get from the safety of Miami to the safety of Chub Cay in the Berry Islands, and that assumes a non-stop trip. If one anchors on the Great Bahama Banks for the night then the window needs to be longer. It is uncommon to have calm weather for that long this time of year. Another issue is that the prevailing winds are south east, which is on the nose. We listened to a big powerful 42' Krogen trawler report the conditions in the Gulf Stream. Van said they were seeing 4 foot waves and they were pounding directly into them. We did not want to be out there in those conditions. One great thing is that Endless Summer is really dialed-in for cruising. All systems were/are working perfectly when we returned to the dock. We were very impressed with our SSB radio rig and the SailMail email system. It was amazing to send emails out into the air from our boat's antenna and have them received over the Internet. Receiving emails through the radio, through the air was equally amazing. We were also able to talk to friends who had made it across before we got to Miami. At 7 AM every morning BASRA (Bahamas Air Sea Rescue Association) has a weather net on the Marine SSB frequency 4003 MHz. Both before and after the net individual boats can and do call each other. Once making contact on 4003 they go to an agreed-to frequency and have a conversation. We were able to talk to friends who were already in the Bahamas on their boats. So I guess this will be the last cruise status email Endless Summer will post on HOW until next autumn. Thanks to Phil Herring for letting us share this stuff with you. Roger and Susie Mummah s/v Endless Summer (1983 Hunter 31 #58) www.cruisingendlesssummer.com remummah@worldnet.att.net