Nautical miles: 73.5
Docked at: Old Bahama Bay Marina, West End, Grand Bahamas
It is hard to believe that we are here! We keep pinching ourselves to see if we are awake and yep it is true, we made it across the Straights of Florida in our own boat. WOW!
We were up at 5:20 for our scheduled 6:15 departure. I walked Zeke and Garth started bringing in the water and electricity. Something Special and Brown Eyed Girl were both up and at em. When I came back with Zeke Sid said that Brandy IV was on their way back in. It was too rough for them to proceed. Passport, the other boat that left early was hanging out there waiting for the three of us to come out and assess the situation. We all decided to go for it. We passed Rita and John on their way back to port. Our first obstacle was a huge Carnival cruise ship coming into Port Everglades, once we got past him a container ship entered. The sun was rising over the horizon and I started to recite “red sky at night sailors .....you know the rest of it and the red sky in the morning is not good, it was a beautiful red sky . I was envisioning us returning to Customs to explain the situation and get an extension on our cruising permit.
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| OK, you can go first! |
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| Here comes the container ship. |
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| Sunrise |
It was lumpy getting out of the channel. (not as bad as Lake Ontario though) The further
we got away from Dollardale the better it got.
We started in three footers with a short period and ended in one
footers with a longer period. I am glad we have stabilizers on the boat! I gave
Zeke a half a gravol so he just curled up on the couch and rode out the waves
in la la land. I think he comes from a
line of Portuguese Land Dogs instead of Portuguese Water Dogs!
Sid took the lead as it was more comfortable for him to run faster – he spotted land at 12 o’clock.
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| Something Special Bahamas Bound |
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| Zeke in a drug induced slumber & Garth just plain tired! |
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| Quarantine Flag up entering West End, Grand Bahamas |
By 1:15 we were docked. The dock hand gave us a ton of paperwork to fill out, landing cards and a marina registration. The captain is the only one allowed off the boat so Garth had to walk across the way to customs, he said that all they really did was scan the paperwork and collect the $300.00 entrance fee. They gave us a ninety day cruising permit and a fishing license.
We rinsed the salt off the boat and went for a walk....it is beautiful. The beach has white white sand and the water is a gorgeous turquoise.
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| The boys on the beach |
We are off tomorrow to an anchorage with four other Looper boats, Something Special, Brown Eyed Girl, Passport, and Sweet Pea. From there we are heading to Green Turtle Bay Marina where we will stay put for a week.
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| The stress free way to get to the Bahamas by sea. It has been a long exhausting day but I must say we both feel a sense of accomplishment having landed here today! |
