Westward Ho

4/1-4/3 – The forecast was for improving weather on Friday, but not until afternoon. Unfortunately, by afternoon, the tide was low and we were afraid we couldn’t make it out of Black Sound. The consensus was to wait until Saturday morning and leave around 7:00 a.m. We had a 58 mile run to Great Sale Cay that was on flat seas and totally uneventful except for the fact that Gerry caught 3 barracuda. We were safely anchored by 4:30. It was great being on the hook and with only about a half dozen other boats in a huge basin. We enjoyed a nice sunset and great steaks on the grill.

On Sunday morning at 8:00 we headed for our next destination, West End, Grand Bahama Island. The seas on the Little Bahama Bank were pretty flat, albeit quite shallow, especially as we neared West End. At times we only had about 6 inches under our keel. We arrived at dead low tide (in hindsight, perhaps a later departure would have been better). As we approached West End and the Atlantic Ocean around 3:30 we gave serious thought to continuing on and making the crossing to Lake Worth, Florida. The winds were out of the east and the seas quite flat. We tried to get NOAA weather, but it was pretty garbled. We had our weather forecast from Saturday morning for both West End and Lake Worth and they seemed doable, however we weren’t sure about the Gulf Stream. We made a call on the VHF for weather information from “any boat with knowledge of the wind/waves in the Gulf Stream” and immediately got two replies. One from a boat that had just made the crossing from Florida to West End and one from a boat that tried to make the crossing from West End to Florida, but turned back. The boat that had just crossed reported waves from 6-12 feet in the stream and said the trip was “hell”. They were an 80 foot boat. Enough said – we turned around and headed into Old Bahama Bay marina. The other boat that tried to make the crossing, but turned back was Ken Bane, another Monk 36, that we had met at Green Turtle Cay. Then said as they hit the Gulf Stream their rail was in the water – definitely not fun. After a short while in the stream, they decided to give up and head back. At his point they were close to half way across.

This is a very nice resort, but a bit pricey. It does help a little that we are RMHYC members as we get a 20% discount and do not have to hook up to water (we don’t need any as our tanks are full) and we get metered electric instead of the set daily rate. We will probably be here a few days, but it does appear we’ll have a good weather window towards the end of the week. Our plans are to be in Stuart, Florida at Hutchinson Island by Sunday for the upcoming MTOA Rendezvous.

It was a rainy morning.  Looking through the raindrops
you can see Sharpie's Dream docked next to us.

On Saturday morning the weather was great and we
headed out from Green Turtle Cay

Not much to see on the way -- here we're passing by
Coopers Town on Great Abaco Island

We were with many sailboats at first, but they eventually
took another tack to head straight across to Florida

Gerry did some fishing

and caught not 1......

not 2 ....

but 3 barracuda.

Second Star in the anchorage at Great Sale Cay



We had a nice sunset



... and an equally nice sunrise the next morning



Second Star in the early morning light

We saw several boats coming east today.  It was kind of
sad thinking these boats were just starting their Bahama adventure
while ours was drawing to a close.

Arriving at Old Bahama Bay

The boats at the dock -- two Monks on either end
and two Krogens in the middle.