After two and a half weeks, we finally got our weather window to leave Marathon and head to the Bahamas. We left Burdines fuel dock at 1:00 Thursday afternoon. We went straight across Hawk Channel, and past Sombrero Reef, then hung a left toward South Riding Rocks on the Bahama Banks.
The weather was beautiful, and we finally got the light winds we were looking for to cross the Gulf Stream. We saw a lot of ships during the night, and I'm here to tell you, that the cruise ship business is doing quite well. When we planned our departure from Marathon, we wanted to enter the Great Bahama Bank in day light. We also wanted to clear the reefs in the Keys in day light. So we should have left late afternoon, but got anxious and left at one. We made great time on the crossing and at about three in the morning we had to slow down to a not much more than idle speed so that we would arrive at the rocks in daylight. That's sort of like making great time while you're on a road trip, and someone decides they need a bathroom break.
We passed the rocks before sun up, but had light to see them. We could have done this in the dark with our radar and chartplotter, but we don't trust the electronic charts that much--especially the Bahama ones. A lot of boats go right on through at night. We are not opposed to running the Bank at night, we just don't want to enter it at night, because you have to pass through rocks or reefs that can scratch gel coat.
The water on the Banks is beautiful. The sunrise picture shows how smooth it was. Of course, that means motoring and not sailing. We saw 12 to 18 feet depths and you can see everything on the bottom. It is weird to be in water that shallow and not be able to see land anywhere.
Because of the light winds, we were able to anchor just before the banks give way to water several thousand feet deep. We anchored in 15 feet of water, about 3 miles south of the Northwest Channel Light. That was the first time I actually saw this boat's anchor hit the bottom. We are not in Texas or Louisiana anymore mon.
Sunset at anchor on the Great Bahama Bank.
We weighed anchor at 3:30 am Saturday and headed for Nassau. Had I trusted our chartplotter, we would have gone on the wrong side of the Northwest Channel Light and run aground. We are glad we had our paper Explorer chartbook.
Paradise Island Lighthouse
I think we saw all four of these guys and then some on Thursday Night.
We had another beautiful day. We made it to Nassau Harbor at 12:40 this afternoon (Saturday), then did the customs and immigration thing. If you are an uptight "no wake" sail boater, this is a great place for a therapy session. I have never seen anything like it. It's like the Autobahn on LSD. Everyone pretty much just zooms through the harbor. Power boaters basically throttle up as soon as they leave their slip and don't slow down until they return to the piling in front of their slip--and then they leave again. The work boats come in at 3/4 throttle and then stop right in front of their slip slam it into reverse and back in. They invent new ways to create wakes. You've got to love it. The funny part is, when you enter or leave the harbor, you have to contact Harbor Control. If there isn't a cruise ship coming or going, the Harbor Control tells you to proceed with caution, and everyone politely responds, "proceeding with caution".
Legal at last.
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