Several other boats started getting ready to leave this morning. Wanting to take advantage of their exodus, I asked one of them to call back with conditions on 'the outside'. After hearing his report of 2-3 foot seas, we decided that we would also leave. At 9:30 AM EST, I headed over to check us out of the marina. After I got back to the boat, we started getting ready to leave. Just before we started undoing lines, another boat pulled in to the slip beside us. We had to chase their cat off our boat! At 1530 GMT, we pulled out of our slip and headed out of West End. At 1619, we spotted our first flying fish of the trip. This inspired Mike to do his Flipper call at 1622. We were greeted with seas larger than we expected, at 4 to 7 feet, and the wind a steady 15 knots out of the south. We traveled on, knowing that we would come into the lee of the Grand Bahama Bank. We made our turn down the North West Providence channel at 1840 GMT. The seas calmed down, and the wind stayed in our sail area, as we put out additional sails. At 1847, we cut the engines off and we sailed! At 1900, I deployed the fishing rod in hopes of catching dinner. We sailed from 1847 GMT to almost 0000 GMT. Not only did we sail, but I also fixed dinner during all of this! Unfortunately, the wind dropped below 10 knots at 0000 GMT, so the sails were no longer supportable so we had to put them away. We fired up the engines and motored at about 800 RPMs for the rest of the night. We could not go any faster or we would get there too early. As the best time to arrive is with the sun high overhead so you can if there are any coral heads ahead of you. At 1400 GMT, we talked with the vessel Lady Simco. I recognized them from the Cruisehiemers net. We hailed them on the VHF and chatted for a bit about getting into Royal Island, and the usual stuff. At the end of our conversation, the Little Woody hailed us to give us his information on Royal Island. Both sets of information confirmed our thoughts, and made us feel much better about heading there. Right after I got off the radio, I heard what sounded like a cat meowing. I looked up at the bow, and there was a black cat! We had a stow away! We dropped anchor at Royal Island at 1556 GMT. After making sure everything was settled on the boat, we pumped up Spot, the new dinghy and Sandra and I took him for a spin. First we checked the water depths around the boat, and then we wandered around the anchorage and met the folks off of two of the other boats. When we came back, I took Mike out so he could get a picture of the boat at anchor in Royal Island. Next we turned our attention to the cat. He was firmly ensconced in Rover (the big dinghy). We tried to make sure he had some water. Since he continued yowling, we gave him some tuna fish. That quieted him down. We were expecting him to need to go to the bathroom, so we moved him out of the dinghy and onto our back deck. He would be leashed there, and we hoped quieter. Just as we completed this, folks from a motor-sailor that anchored close to us came over to see if we had any information on weather for tomorrow. They are planning to head up to the Abacos, and their SSB Receiver is on the fritz. I gave them the weather we had and we spent some time chatting with them. After they left, Sandra and I took the cat to the island so he could do his business. We debated for a few minutes, and decided he was probably feral and would do just fine on the island, so, instead of 'walking' him, we set him free, and returned to the boat. Around 5:30 PM EST, we heard him yowling at the docks, so Sandra and I went to fetch him. We will have to hand him over to Spanish Wells authorities tomorrow, since technically, it is illegal to have him on our boat. Mike insists that the cat is mine and I am responsible for it, since the first time we saw him hop on the boat I told mike that he would leave. Since he did not Mike says it's my cat.