Finally In The Bahamas

Nassau

We left Palm Beach at 4am on the 27th and had a relatively straightforward trip across to West End, Grand Bahama.

The wind was a bit on the nose to start with, which combined with the strong north set of the Gulf Stream made us think we would have a hard trip again (3 years ago the trip to Bimini took forever and we were hoping not to repeat it).  But after a few hours the wind came round more to the south and the Gulf Stream died out after about 30 miles and the trip ended up as a simple sail under sunny skies – we even caught a small Mahi Mahi to really spice up the trip.

Bella crossed with us and we were soon tied up at West End, customs formalities complete and cracking open a cold beer to celebrate their first international trip, the culmination of our 1100 mile trip from Annapolis.

The next day we parted company, Bella to the Abacos and us towards Nassau, the first part of the trip was definitely not what we signed up for.   

We were just out of the marina and some squalls turned up, dousing us with heavy rain and killing the wind, we were then shocked to see a water spout about a mile away heading towards us. 

We fired up the engine, and furled the genoa leaving just the main to douse should it get too close.  About 10 minutes later it broke up and a new one formed about 200 metres off our stern, or exactly where we would have been if we hadn’t fired up the engine! 

We don’t have any photos of that one as were too worried about it!  Luckily it went the other way and we were spared the damage – a scary sight indeed.

The rest of the sail to the Berry’s was superb, we averaged 8 knots and romped along, we caught a tuna and dropped anchor in Great Harbour just after dark. 

Next day off to Nassau, bagging a King Mackerel to make it 3 fish in 3 days, another water spout but far enough away to be interesting, finally getting into Nasau at sunset.

We are picking up Josette here for a holiday hence the rush through the Berry Islands, we will have to enjoy them on the way back north.

So another month gone by, and we are hoping that in December we can stop endlessly sailing to the next place and enjoy the Bahamas.