We are in the Bahamas!!!! Yes the water is as beautiful as people say it is. It is clear, amazing shades of blue, cool and refreshing and it goes on for ever.
I haven’t posted anything in the blog for several days, I did however write quite a bit. Unfortunately days worthy of writing got zapped away as I tried to publish with a poor internet connection. I was so disheartened that l haven’t written anything else until now. So let me go back …..
We crossed from Lake Worth to West End last Tuesday. We were joined by Long and his wife, Day aboard their 36′ Monk named Lucy. Our anchors were up by 8. Conditions leaving the Lake Worth inlet were bouncier than we had hoped. The forecast called for 2-4 foot seas with an 11 second period. I guess that’s what we had, but there seemed to be more 4 footers than 2 footers. It got rolly, but never horrible. Dramamine was taken by all. We had read that one way you know you have reached the Gulf Stream is the change in water temperature. The temperature in the stream is usually about 75 degrees, 10 degrees higher than the water in that area of the Atlantic. IMG_0202
So I pulled out Tim’s infrared temperature gun and began taking readings. The water nearer shore was running in the low 70’s and we got to depths of 1000 feet + it lowered to 65 degrees. Finally it raised up to the mid 70’s, the water depth was 2000 feet + and we were in the stream. The only way we really felt the change was the water temp. We did get a bit of a northerly push, but there was no big “whoo hoo”.
We made it to West End a little after 5, cleared customs and were ready for chillin. There’s not a lot to West End, so we had a quick dinner and off to bed.
Our next stop was Great Sale Cay. GSC is an uninhabited island that just happens to be about halfway between West End and Green Turtle Cay. It’s claim to fame is that it makes a great anchorage.
We wanted to get to Leeward Yacht club on Green Turtle Cay, but the channel runs about 4-5′ at low tide. With our 4 1/2 ‘ draft, we need a high tide to safety motor through. We knew that we would be coming in at dead low tide if we tried to make it from Great Sale to Green Turtle in one day. So we decided to stay the next night at Spanish Cay. What a disappointment. Not only was it very overpriced, but it was very unprotected from south winds. Guess what we had late that night. Yes, south winds. Tim and I were awakened to the sound of wood smashing. The combo of high tide (tides are 3 feet here) and the southerly winds in the mid 20’s had Subject to Change’s toe rails riding up over the pilings and then dropping down on top of them. The sound of our wooded toe rail splintering as it slammed down on the top of the piling was not good. We quickly lassoed some pilings on our starboard side to try to hold us off the dock and added more fenders to the port side. Not a fun evening. We will not go back to Spanish Cay.
We parted ways here with Long and Day. They were great traveling companions, but they were staying in Spanish Cay one more night before heading to some other islands for snorkeling and swimming. We left for Green Turtle and the wind built. We loved GTC. Everyone at Leeward Yacht Club was great, friendly and more than willing to tell us about the great places to eat, drink, shop, swim, etc. We also ran into a couple we had met at Spanish Cay, Rob and Kim aboard their catamaran. They became our new buddies for the next couple of days. We walked around historic Settlement Village and the next day Tim rented a golf cart and the 5 of us took of for a tour of the island. The roads in GT are marginal at best, lots of pot holes, dust, no shoulders, many are just cut through the hard limestone and not even paved. Note a place I’d walk along or even want to drive on at night. We checked out White Sound. Nice area, more resorty than Black Sound, some nice marinas.
Kitty and Bill are flying in today, April 9 and we needed to get across the Whale while the weather was nice, so we left GTC on the 2nd. The crossing the Sea of Abaco from GTC to Marsh Harbor is very shallow in areas and we chose not to attempt it with our 4 1/2′ draft. our only option is to cross The Whale. The back side of the Whale is the Atlantic. Conditions can get very hairy when going through the narrow channel created by Shale Cay and neighboring Channel Rock. We’ve heard horror stories about the Whale for quite a while. Luckily for us the Gods of the Sea were with us and our crossing was very uneventful. We were happy to do uneventful for a change.
We’ve been at Mangoes Marina in Marsh Harbor for a week now. It has mostly been a week of boat chores, scrubbing the boat, washing clothes, figuring out the Bahamian phone, sewing a cover for our new freezer, cutting dowels to hold the hatches open. We’ve used the couple days of calm winds to explore by dinghy. And then there’s town itself.
I will add more later, but this is long overdue for posting. So, it’s going out as is.
You are there!! So happy to hear from you – I knew you were doing a lot of traveling because I was tracking, but it is nice to hear how all that traveling went. It sounds like it was adventuresome. ha
Things are good here – R and S and I are both doing a little up-grading of out TVs, etc. so have had the Geek Squad here for 2 days and we each have another day scheduled for this week. It seemed to me that it would have been about 3 hours of work, but I was certainly wrong.
You are all looking good (pictures). Continue to enjoy the warm, blue waters.
Much love, Elayne