A Florida Update

Well, we made it back to the US!
We had a long haul across the Little Bahama Bank, covering about 250 miles in 5 days, without ever getting off the boat. After our departure from Green Turtle at high tide, we quickly anchored outside the channel as we waited for a squall to pass through. Bahamian squalls are so disappointing...on the few occasions that we have seen dark clouds looming on the horizon, we expect that the rain and wind that will follow will be on par with the storms at home. Not so. As the others, this little rain cloud brought only that ..... a little rain. After moving on, we sailed for a couple of hours before anchoring at dinner time near Powell Cay.

We knew we wanted to cross the gulf stream on Saturday. The winds and seas were forecast to be most favourable on that day.
Our plan had been to sail from Powell Cay to Great Sale Cay on Thursday, then to Mangrove Cay on Friday. We would then get up early on Saturday, by early I mean about 3am, and finish our sail across the bank in the dark. That would have us beginning our deep water sailing around daybreak, and we would then continue on to Lake Worth in Florida. After listening to the chatter on the radio, hearing what other boats were going to do, we changed our plan.
Thursday night we still anchored at Great Sale, but then Friday we continued past Mangrove Cay and anchored on the edge of the bank, with two other boats nearby, ready to go across the stream at first light. While it didn't exactly turn out as we had hoped, in the end, it all worked out very well.
For starters, as we were passing Mangrove, a dolphin joined us and played at our bow for about 4 or 5 minutes. Because the water is so clear, we were able to see him both underwater, and as he surfaced. Those few minutes alone were worth the extra hours of travel that we put in that day.

By the time we set the anchor down around 6, everyone was tired. Jessica made us pizza, which unfortunately, I could not partake of, as the rocking motion of the boat in 3' seas was a bit much for my stomach. I was fine as soon as I put my head down and closed my eyes, which wasn't long after dinner. Greg opted to sleep in the cockpit, as he was a bit nervous about anchoring so close to the edge of the ocean. We were literally less than a half mile from water that was thousands of feet deep. Greg watched one of the other boats drag anchor around 10pm, and it took them several tries to get the anchor to hold again in the sand. That was the end of any chance of sleep for him. In addition, we were not too far off the route that any vessel traversing the area would follow, and even though the three boats had lots of lights up, we didn't want to take any chances.
At midnight everything changed. The current pushed us sideways to the waves, so instead of rocking bow to stern, we were rolling side to side - a very uncomfortable motion on a boat. It was bad enough to wake me up, and to Greg's relief suggest that we just get going. So, that's what we did. By 1:10, we were on our way. One of the most fascinating times on this trip for me is watching our depth gauge to see the ocean floor fall away below us. For the first 20 minutes or so, the depth of water was somewhere between 14 and 20 feet. At 1:27, we were in 50 feet. As my watch turned to 1:29 there was 278 feet of water, and before 1:30, the depth gauge didn't return anything, it was just too deep. So, off we went into the darkness, both below and above us.
It truly was a beautiful sail. The stars were spectacular, with the nearest lights being those of Florida 50 miles away. The bioluminescence in the water made it look like fireflies were filling our wake. The moon rose over our left shoulders around 3, and the sun began to light the sky behind us a few hours later. Greg and I alternated turns helming and napping. Jessica appeared a few times during the early morning, joining us for a few minutes before returning to our berth to sleep some more. Madeline slept right through it all.
At one point, we considered making the longer trek to Ft. Pierce, but then realized that would be just too long a day for everyone, especially with our early start. Plus we were slightly concerned about the engine as it had been smoking a bit, a problem that we were fairly sure was caused by bad Bahamian fuel.
Happily, we didn't see any freighters until well into daylight, and had no problem adjusting our heading slightly to stay well clear of their course. Mid-morning, the skyscrapers of West Palm Beach came into view and we passed many Man-o-War jellyfish floating along the surface. At noon we passed through the Lake Worth Inlet, and motored north along the ICW to a cozy little anchorage 5 miles further. Tired, but happy with our choices, we spent the afternoon playing games, napping and toasting our return to the continent. Cheers!