Steve and I left Fort Lauderdale and made our way to Miami offshore. It was a beautiful day for a sail and felt good to be out on the ocean again. The trip was uneventful other than passing two sea turtles which was cool. We dropped our anchor for only 12 hours in Miami then left again at 2:00 in the morning so that we would arrive in Nassau Bahamas in Daylight.
The trip over was a little lumpy for the first 12 hours. The wind was coming from the east so we had to motor into 3 - 4 foot waves right on the nose . We knew we were going to have to do this but chose to leave anyway because the weather was supposed to turn bad again on Monday night and there wouldn’t be a better opportunity to cross the Gulf Stream for another week. By the afternoon, the winds died down a bit and so did the waves and it turned into a very nice trip. I threw a fishing line over the side just for laughs and after about 20 minutes I caught a barracuda. It was about 3 lbs with really big teeth. Barracuda are ok to eat when caught in deep water but not when caught off a reef because they often carry a disease. This one was probably ok (since I caught it in over 1,000 feet) but I tossed it back anyway. I wasn’t in the mood to clean it underway.
After 35 hours, we arrived in Nassau Bahamas and radioed Nassau Harbour Control because all boats have to obtain permission to enter the harbour. We tied up to the pier while we checked into Customs and Immigration then anchored in the Eastern Channel off Paradise Island. We decided to celebrate our arrival in the Bahamas by opening a bottle of champagne even though it was still early morning.
There was only one other boat anchored in this sheltered area and we didn’t realize until later that it was our friend Jim on Blossom from Hamilton. He was in town with his dinghy and was surprised to find us there when he returned that afternoon. Later Jim showed us the important landmarks on shore….Starbucks, Dairy Queen, KFC, etc.
We met two women from Canada who were crew on a yacht nearby. Linda and Tracey were on their way out to do some lobster hunting and stopped by Toboggan on their dinghy. They invited us to go with them but we were just getting settled from our trip over. We said we would take a rain check and we were very happy when they returned the next day all suited up and ready to go. We grabbed our snorkel gear and Jim and headed off to some coral heads nearby. Within an hour, Linda had speared two lobsters. Then they took us to a sunken barge which made for very interested snorkeling as well. After 3 hours, we were all a little chilly so we headed back. Tracey and Linda went back to their yacht, cooked up a fabulous lobster dish with lime and cilantro and brought it back to Toboggan.. We had a very enjoyable evening. This is exactly how I pictured our life to be in the Bahamas.