2024: Bahamas- Chub Cay

 4 March 2024

Depart: Alice Town, Bimini Blue Water Marina, Bahamas  7:00

Arrive: Chub Cay anchorage 5:35

Distance: ~ 88 nm

Conditions: Calm seas; partly cloudy; cool breeze

We were up before the sun this morning in hopes of an early departure of around 6:30, but we had so much work to do to leave the slip and get going, we were a bit off the target leave time. We had 6 lines on the boat that we took off or reset for quick departure, and the power cord was out and had to be retracted. It may not sound like much work, but one anchor line is so much simpler and faster.

Besides setting up for departure, I had another go around with the bug infestation. They keep appearing, and I keep killing. Hopefully sometime I will win the war!

In between running here and there, I did manage to grab a picture as the sun was coming up over the docks.

Although S/V Paper Sails planned on a different destination in the Bahamas when they left Florida, they ended up at Bimini as well as us, and Clark managed to capture a picture of their boat as we passed by.

S/V Paper Sails

We had a long travel day today -- almost 11 hours. For a portion of the trip we had music on the radio coming from Florida. Eventually, however, it died out. Clark pulled out some CDs to entertain us and pass the time more quickly. The view, although beautiful, became a little monotonous after 4 or 5 hours. 

We did have some other boaters nearby for a portion of the voyage. We could see them in the distance. Eventually we caught up to them.

And then passed them.

S/V from "RestlessNative.com"

Clark took a picture of the water. It shows that the bottom is quite visible as we traveled over the area even though the water was 15' to 20' deep.

Sand and weeds 20' down

He also took the picture below showing the marker design for Mackie Shoal.

After 10 hours of looking at only water, we finally arrived at Chub Cay where we planned to drop anchor for the night.

Land Ho!

Some folks on the beach

We dropped anchor behind the sailboat shown in the picture below.

Colorful houses in background

The sun was going down as we dropped anchor, so I quick grabbed some pictures for today's udpate. Clark verified that that channel markers are shown in the pictures.

Clark took the picture below because of the cloud formation. We both saw faces in the clouds, but we saw different ones! I see a man lying on his back with his mouth open and and his hand to his mouth as he yawns widely! 

Interesting Cloud Formation over
"Mama Rhoda Rock" Island
near Chub Cay

We have no entertainment at this point unless we watch one of the DVDs we have in the cupboard. We can setup a hotspot for the Blog updates, but we cannot stream any television or movies over that hotspot.

Clark had a mystery to solve while I cooked dinner. He has a Single Sideband Radio to capture Chris Parker's weather / travel advisories. Unfortunately, when he tried it, he found too much interference from some unknown source causing the radio to make all sorts of beeps and boops rendering it useless. 

He put his thinking cap on and had an "ah ha" moment! We installed ultrasonic transducers to keep growth off the bottom of the boat. He said that those devices act like antennas themselves thus the interference. When he wants to listen to Chris, he will have to turn off those transducers temporarily.  

While I updated the Blog, Clark checked out our upcoming travel plans. Paper charts! Old School!

Paper Charts are great for planning