Bimini to Nassau

JAMEY'S POST:

All the dockside punditry and hours scanning endless wind vector charts finally converged on a departure date from Bimini. The whole trip is around 120 miles at a heading a little south of east, so it should take us roughly 24 hours or so.

Many captains sail halfway, then anchor late at night just north of Andros island for a few hours of rest before sailing on the next day to Nassau. The anchor spot is in about 12 feet of water over a sand bottom, but has zero protection from wind and chop.  It is not a nice place to anchor unless the weather is very settled. Another option is to bail out and visit the Berry Islands.  They are roughly 2/3 of the way to Nassau, are less crowded but offer few truly sheltered harbors and very limited provisioning choices.

After days of strong east wind, today the wind is forecast to veer around to the south through the day, slowly changing to southwest, west and then northwest with the passage of the next cold front in about 36 hours. This pattern repeats itself for most of the winter in the central Bahamas. 

 Jan 11th 11 am  wind forecast

Jan. 12th 7pm forecast.

Call me an old salt, but I was surprised at how the high resolution weather forecasts available these days pointed to a specific optimum hour for departure: 11:00 am on Jan 11th.  So we sailboaters, all eager to sail after nine days on the docks, left in a procession from the marina, mostly all eastbound for Nassau.  Around eight boats left Bimini including Romana, Slow Waltz, Cat Trick, Windflower and C-Spirit.  We played the dirty trick of taking Asad and Gary along for the ride back to Nassau from which they had just flown yesterday 

It was bouncy right outside of Bimini, as we had to go back out into the gulf stream, but within an hour our course brought us onto the smooth water of Great Bahama Bank. The bank is a large area of shallow, crystal clear water mostly between three (!) and twenty feet deep. A few tiny islands are sprinkled around the edges of the bank, and though the waters are choppy in high winds, they smooth out to near flat as soon as the wind speed drops.

We caught a Spanish mackerel as we crossed out of the ocean and onto the banks just north of Gun Cay.  Late in the afternoon, I cleaned, breaded and pan fried it for a basic but nice dinner with rice.

Otherwise, our sail was very uneventful.  We had just enough wind (12 knots) to sail at 5 knots with an apparent wind angle of 60 degrees.  C-Spirit sails comfortably and relatively fast like this, so we did not use the engine. We sailed with similar wind, and slightly rougher seas once we left the bank for the deep waters north of to New Providence Island. The late night portion of the sail was tough on everyone, but the boat felt strong and handled nicely along our chosen course.

By morning we were approaching Nassau harbor and we were snugly anchored north of Rose Island in 10 feet of crystal blue water by mid-morning.  We spent the rest of the day snorkeling, swimming and walking on the beach before moving around to the other side of the island as the cold front winds picked up.

As Asad and Gary had just arrived yesterday evening, we made sure they got a walk around Bimini before we sailed off. 

Big fish. "Is that me? Am I underwater?" asks Skye.

Practicing water-bending.  I am hoping that they are bending the water to be calm for our all day, all night sail. 

Chicken souse with Bahamian bread -- YUMMMM! Gary shared his with all of us!

We are hoping that all of us will avoid being seasick.  It's harder, of course, for landlubbers.  Asad and Gary are armed with scopalamine patches. 

Discussing navigation.

A friend's lap and a vomit bowl -- what else does a girl need?

The bowl doubles as a sunshade too!

Dinner!!

Uncle Asad - there are few who would be as tolerant of or appreciative of today's journey. 

Skye wears her harness well.

Pouring coconut water fresh from the source.

Sweet, soft coconut meat!

Jamey and Nancy took 2.5 to 3  hour shifts through the day and night.  Gary stepped in to help. 

Heading east with the sun setting behind us.

We had a full moon that lit up the sky and water throughout the night.  You can see the moon behind Jamey in this picture.  He was a bit caught off guard by the flash.

Happily anchored after a long sail.

________________

WHERE WE ARE:  Heading across the Great Bahama Bank.  The Great Bahama Bank is an island that built up over millions and millions of years, formed from the limestone deposits of coral reefs that came and went over this time.  It is now a limestone bed that is approximately three miles thick and so heavy that it has been sinking under its own weight.  Before the last ice age, much of the bank was exposed up to 400 feet high.  With the melting of glaciers and the rising of ocean levels, most of of it is now submerged though not by much, leaving the waters a beautiful clear aquamarine color.  Dotted across the banks are coral heads that sometimes look as if they are just the right height to slam into C.Spirit's keel. 

WHERE WE STARTED: Docked at Brown's Marina in Bimini.

THERE TO HERE:  Smooth sailing with warm, steady wind and gentle waters.  Deeper draft sailboats went north around Bimini.  We sailed within sight of one catamaran initially.  We otherwise saw no boats till we reached Russell Beacon (a long defunct navigational marker) where we saw four or five anchor lights clustered closely together.  We briefly considered joining them, but the sailing conditions were too perfect to resist, and the idea of motoring in tomorrow's light wind helped us push onward.

On one of my (Nancy) watches around 2 am to 5 am or so, I had that feeling of great and overwhelming sleepiness.  It reminded me of when I was a resident and worked 30 hours shifts every four days.  Fatigue and sleep can/must be warded off when you consider that you have lives in your hands.  Gary came up from down below, feeling a bit seasick, and sat across from Asad who had already been lying in the cockpit.  None of us spoke, all of us alone with our thoughts and feelings, but also bonded together by the spectacular moonlit night, the steady movement of the boat and the vast expanse of empty night space and water surrounding us.  I felt an extra sense of security to have my friends sitting there so calmly with me that night.

It can be tricky navigating in the dark.  I like to use a combination of the compass, GPS, stars or moonlit clouds.  As we approached the Northwest Providence channel, I finally was able to make out the red and green of a ship whose lights I had been following for a few hours to port and stern of us.  Is the boat coming towards us, going away from us or traveling parallel to us, I had wondered this whole time.  As I saw the green and red, I realized it was coming right towards our path.  I started pushing on Macho the autopilot's buttons so that I could go trim the sails.  Luckily Jamey heard the beeping and felt the boat change course and came up to help.  I think he was pretty surprised to see how close the ship was to us.  Gary and Asad sat calmly through this all, and I wondered what such a night must have been like for them.