9 April 2024
Depart: Great Harbour Cay Marina 7:30
Arrive: Alice Town, Bimini, Bahamas anchorage 5:50
Distance: ~ 60 nm
Conditions: Sunny, cool breeze, following seas
We targeted our departure to be some time between 7:30 and 8:00. Happily, we hit the 7:30 mark. It takes longer to get out of a marina than to pull up an anchor. Multiple lines, fenders and fender boards, and the power cord all need to be pulled in and stowed. The marina staff saw us getting ready to depart, so they took a final reading from the electric meter and gave us the bill for our stay. While I positioned our lines for quick release at departure, Clark went in and settled the bill.
As we pulled away from the marina, I admired the interesting sky from the stern of the boat while stowing lines and fender boards.
Meanwhile, Clark took progressive pictures, from the upper helm, of the cut he needed to navigate to start our trip towards Bimini today.
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| Well hidden; black dent in the landscape |
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| Opening up some |
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| Starting to look like it might go somewhere |
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| at last a visible opening |
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| wide enough to traverse |
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| Looking back at the vanishing cut to the marina |
Today, we traveled the Great Bahamas Bank. Clark pointed out that we had no 3 or 4-digit depth readings here. We also had the waterway to ourselves for the majority of the day. We neither saw nor heard any other boats for most of the day.
With the chart plotter showing we had 7 + hours of travel with nothing but water to look at, Clark pulled out some CDs so we had music to listen to. As we got closer to the U.S., he found a couple of radio stations. One was in Spanish. The beat of the music was okay, but we did not understand any of the words! I spent most of the trip working on my Penny Press puzzle book.
Eventually, a couple of boats showed up on AIS. Clark, of course, had to check them out to get the details. One was a freighter that created a great spray of water off the bow as it traveled.
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| "Emerald Express" |
The other was a Carnival cruise ship leaving Bimini and heading for Jacksonville, Florida.
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| Carnival Elation Cruise Ship 856' long x 112' wide x 26.6' depth |
When we started our trip on the Great Bahama Bank, Clark set a target "waypoint" at North Rock. The chart plotter said it would be more than 7 hours to our waypoint. We finally arrived here at 5:00 p.m.
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| North Rock |
We still had about 45 minutes of travel, another 6 nm, to go before we could drop anchor for the night. Coming into the anchorage, we could see several sailboats already anchored here close to shore. Even close to shore we have rocking going on. We are not getting quite the protection from waves that Clark had hoped for.
Our view from the bow as we dropped anchor was of Alice Town, Bimini.
As we sat down to dinner, the sky decided to give us a show for sunset tonight. A cloudy night generally makes for better sunset pictures.
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