There’s a version of this cruising life that exists in your head before you do it. The turquoise water, the unhurried days, the feeling of being exactly where you’re supposed to be. Green Turtle Cay was the first place where the version in my head and the version I was actually living balanced out.
We’d met a family from Florida at the dock in Coco Bay, where stingrays and turtles eat out of tourists’ hands – a mix of anchorage and beach hang that defines Bahamian cruising. It was the kind of meeting that starts as a wave, an introduction, a “Cheers!” and then turns into something real before you quite notice it happening. They were generous in the way that many boat families tend to be. They were there on their center console power boat, I’s on the Prize, for vacation, not as full-time cruisers. They loaned us a spear pole before we’d really earned the right to ask for one, showed up with good energy, and had kids who matched ours in age and temperament in the ways that matter most when you’re all stuck on boats together. Different in plenty of ways, but similarly the same in the ones that count.
The snorkeling off the dinghy was on a reef in calm water on perfect day. We just dropped in. The water was the kind of clear that makes you feel like you’re floating in air, and the reef beneath us was alive in every direction. There were sharks – just a few of them, moving through at their own pace, curious in the way that sharks in healthy water tend to be. Not scary. Just present, going about their business, occasionally glancing over at the strange creatures flapping around above them. The kids were cool about it. I (Susanna) was excited and pretending to be calm, which is basically the same thing.
We missed catching a fish that day. We could have speared it upon first sighting, but then our snorkel adventure would be over almost as soon as it started, so we passed on it. We learned lessons about patience and timing – both fishing and snorkeling. We came back with no fish but also no regrets.
And then there was the beach.
I don’t know exactly what set it off. The sunlight, maybe, or the particular shade of the water. Perhaps it was the kids playing on the paddle board while Barrett enjoyed the swing over the water. Maybe it was just the accumulated weight of weeks of actually doing the thing we’d talked about doing for so long. I was sitting there in a hammock, and it just hit me. The beauty of it. The reality of it. We were here. We had made it here. This was our life, at least for now, and it was more than I had let myself believe it would be.
I cried on a beach in Green Turtle Cay, and I’m not even a little embarrassed about it.
That’s the thing about staying longer than you plan. You get past the logistics and the anxiety and the learning curve, and somewhere in the middle of an ordinary afternoon you look up and realize the life you wanted is the one you’re in.
Next up: Spanish Cay, a broken generator, and the unexpected gift of being stuck wsomewhere beautiful.
Sailing Agora 
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