Green Turtle Cay

We made it!!

Sorry I didn't post yesterday but I couldn't get on the Internet.

Thursday 12/11/2014

We left Lake Worth (West Palm Beach) at 11:00 am after waiting for possible winds offshore to die down and the tide to turn.  No sense fighting a wind and a tide.  Once out of the inlet we had to divert for a tug pulling a barge and then we set our course and headed out - motoring again.  The seas were suppose to have died down overnight but there was still 2-3 foot swells causing a lot of rolling, not as bad as we had our last day offshore but still uncomfortable.  We decided to go for it.  It was a long trip across but around 8:00 pm we reached Little Bahama Bank.  It was weird watching our depth gauge go from no reading to 15 feet.  The water in the gulf stream is more then 2000 feet deep so the gauge couldn't find anything to report, then suddenly it finds the bottom around 300 feet and starts climbing - fast.  Our waypoint was in an area about 15 feet deep and then we stayed in less then 20 feet the rest of the trip.  We only had to deal with one ship crossing our path.

We chose to continue all night while the rest of the group diverted off to an island to anchor and rest for the night.  We have done this a number of times before.  What we do is break the night into four hour shifts.  One of us sleeps and the other is on watch and taking care of the boat, continuing to switch off until we make landfall.

We reached Green Turtle Cay around 1:30 on the 12th.  We went to the area shown on our charts to anchor and go in to report to Customs.  We were not planning to stay there since the winds were wrong but it was only going to be a temporary stop.  While getting the dinghy ready another boat came by and told us that with the tide up we could make it into the harbor and to call Donny's Mooring for a mooring ball.  We decided that was a better idea and proceeded into Black Sound Harbor with about a foot and a half of water under the keel.  Good thing it was high tide.  We tied onto a mooring and then went to shore to report in.  By the time I got to the Customs Office it was 3:00 and the Agent was leaving for the day telling me to "come back tomorrow at nine."  Back to the boat to spend the night, this time without it moving.

Miles covered: 151 nautical miles, Total for trip so far: 837, all at a joggers pace.

Saturday 12/13/2014 - Green Turtle Cay

I went ashore to get us checked in and got our visitors permit good for 90 days.  At the end of the 90 days we can apply for another 90 days.  We are now officially in the Bahamas.  We spent the day walking around the little town of New Plymouth.  It has a very interesting history, which was new to me and I love history.  It was founded in 1778 when colonist loyal to the King were persecuted after the Revolutionary War and left their homes in the new United States and resettled.  After lunch consisting of a conch burger we set off to walk to the other end of the island to check with the others from our group that arrived late the evening before.  Cori is going to kill me with these walks.  Two miles there and two miles back (amazing how that works) after being an a 42 foot boat for days on end without leaving the cockpit.  We have settled in for another quiet evening.  We are planning to stay here on the mooring for the weekend.