NO PROBLEM MON

I subscribe to a weather service. There are several, but it's widely considered that Chris Parker's service is the best…most accurate. The service comes with a fee because it's extremely detailed (wind direction, clocking, speed, gusts, fronts, hi/lows, trough, precip, squalls, wave heights, per second, gulf stream crossing windows north and south routes, east and west departures) and he throws in his opinion in favor, or not, with the computer models he references. He's good. You can email him your itinerary and he'll shoot you a personalized report. He could have just cut and pasted the first one he sent me. 

Each morning we walk the docks at Great Harbor and say to one another: "Looks like it may die down (insert day of the week)" ..and yet by the afternoon the forecast has been extended. Some of these folks (expats) are in no hurry to leave. Some (Lobster fishermen) are losing money. Some (Bahamians) are just ready for things to return to normal. And me… I'm just running out of options. 

Monday morning: Day 9 in Great Harbor. Chris Parker has added yet another day to my delay. I can't sit any longer. "Are you leaving?" they ask. Yeah, I've gotta move, I say…if nothing else I'll get around Stirrup Cay and be ready to bolt first thing tomorrow morning. I don't make the rounds to say goodbye to everyone, which is rude-ish…but goodbyes suck and we all must know we'll never see one another again. Still, a few of my neighbors hear me crank up and they come to help me shove off. I think deep down they know it's time for all of us to resume our respective journeys. 

It's a gorgeous morning…15kt wind and I raise the sails as soon as I leave the harbor. I'm sailing around to the ocean side of the island, and to do so, I have to round the upper cays (Cocoa, Stirrup, Little Stirrup).

They're awesome looking little islands…they should be: The cruise lines own them. They're private (up to the tide line) and only used by Norweigan and Disney to dump off their hoards for a few hours of fabricated bliss. As I round the cays the forecasted winds greet me, and they bring the PO'd seas with them,…and of course, my preferred heading is thwarted by wind, sea…and two huge cruise ships. 

I fall off the wind to gain speed, but I lose time in doing so. It takes me the rest of the day to reach Soldier Cay, my refuge for the night. I arrive about an hour before sundown and it's pristine, desolate and calm. I have gin-clear water and a quarter-mile crescent shaped beach to myself…it's pretty sweet. Steve and I leave our prints in the sand and dinghy back to the boat so that I can grab my mask and snorkel before the sun sets. 

Under water, I'm amazed at the pool-like visibility, but I can't enjoy it because I know sunset is feeding time for creatures of the deep…so I do a quick inspection of the keel/prop and climb out just before my imagination devours me. 

It's lobster night, courtesy of my stranded brethren. They sold me 4 small tails for $17 and I'm grilling 2 of them tonight in this beautiful setting ..life is good. 

The brothers were fishing Great Harbor when they ran into trouble, but they hail from Spanish Wells, Eleuthera. They'll limp on back home when the seas calm tomorrow..or the next day…or the next. Spanish Wells is pretty much due east from here so I've decided to make that my next destination. It's almost 60 miles across the "Tongue of the Ocean," the deep water cut that splits the northern Bahamas, but I'm hoping the winds will still have a NE flavor to them and I'll be able to make it across before dark. Going to Spanish Wells (which is supposed to be fairly Americanized, but nice) seems like a good call for me. I can see some more of the Bahamas without getting too far south…and when (if) the normal easterly trades return I'll have no trouble heading back home. 

Scratch that plan. The NE has dissipated and my preferred bearing has me nosed directly into 3' seas…I'll have to motor the entire way and even at that I won't make it across before dark. The couple with the 38' version of my boat are headed to Rose Island (just east of Nassau) and they invited me to tag along. So, sure… Rose Island it is. If they left today, as they said they would, they'll probably catch me in a few hours…and it's not long before I see a sailboat making its way around Stirrup Cay. Still, my heading for Rose isn't much better than Spanish Wells because I can't grab but a sliver of the wind and the seas are setting me back. After an hour or so I scratch that plan too. On to Plan "C." --> I'll head for Chub Cay. With better wind direction I make my way around the bottom of Little Harbor Cay and into Chub. Barely making my approach, I already feel better about this plan. The sun and water are living up to the Bahamas Dept. of Tourism's marketing campaign and the palm-lined beaches surrounding the entrance into Chub harbor can't help but set you in a good mood. Once in, the marina is 1st Class…huge concrete floating docks (over 200 slips), clubhouse, pool, restaurant and the aforementioned beach. The place is nearly empty but you can tell it's a wealthy sports fisherman's haven just by the size and beauty of the few boats that are here. With one glance at the Tee-shirt rack, you can also tell the size of those fishermen …it's flush with  XL, XXL and XXXLs….and it ain't because that's all they had left; it's because this place was built for the fat and happy.

I check in and try not to blow a gasket when the receptionist quotes me $3 per foot (boat length) for one night's tie-up to the dock. I rationalize the $0 per foot I paid last night and fork over my credit card…at least I'll get a hot shower and some WIFI out of it. I hit the restaurant next door and ask if I can eat out on the patio with my dog. "Sure, mon…no problem…Whatch you want?" I order a cheeseburger and a beer. "Pay for your food here…get your beer at the bar." (Huh?…uh..ok) I walk over to the bar and grab my $6.13 beer and take it outside to my table. 15 minutes later I hear a tap on the window…I turn and it's the guy who took my order, waving me inside. I go inside and there's my lunch…in a "to-go" box. "There you go, mon…Ketchup and every-ting is in da bag." I shake my head and think to myself; if this guy was an ice-cream flavor he'd be "pralines and dick."

The burger's good. The wifi sucks. I've come to the conclusion that no wifi is better than crappy wifi and as inviting as this place looks, it's not "all that." I figure if I'm not going south, I may as well go home. It's 2pm…I can't make the 75 miles to Bimini, but the burger should hold me well into the night. I go back to the receptionist and tell her I'm leaving. She looks at me sideways but doesn't bother to ask me why…because I'm pretty sure she doesn't care. I shove off and have a great sail easterly. Because I'm leaving from Chub, not Great Harbor, I'll be on the banks (15' depth) almost the entire way. I start my sleep intervals around 10pm. It's sane…not too rough, not too windy but it's blowing from astern. In an attempt to quell my luffing jib, I decide to hook up the whisker pole. (A whisker pole is a pole that holds the jib out of the lee of the mainsail.) My jib sheet is too taut to attach it so I go back to loosen it …when I return my whisker pole is gone. (So if you need one, look about half-way between Chub and Bimini.) I use my GPS to calculate how far I need to go in order to make it into Bimini in time for breakfast. I drop anchor at 4:30 a.m. and wake at 7….we're in port by 9. That makes this crossing 2.5 hours shorter than the hellish one. I make a B-line for that savory breakfast I remember oh-so well…but it's not the same. Different chef, I tell myself. 

I think I'll get some laundry done, but before I do…a quick check in with Chris Parker's weather service and… Holy shit! Another front is falling in behind the last one and he says Wednesday is the last day for crossing the stream. Today IS Wednesday. I just pulled an all-nighter so I'm more than willing to wait a day or two, but he says the next window is more than a few days away. I scramble…No time to stop for fuel so I use one of my 5 gallon spare jugs to bring me up to 3/4 tank and I bust it out of Bimini. It's 10 a.m.  

I've got a strong easterly wind with following seas and a raging gulf stream current…problem is: I don't know where I'm going. I can't head for Miami because the stream will push me north of it. There are lots of online references regarding departure from Florida, but few regarding the return. I aim for Port Everglades Inlet…Fort Lauderdale… It's about 48 miles, so at 6kts I should get there just after sunset. My GPS continuously updates my estimated arrival time. If I slow down or veer off course it adds a few minutes….catch a good breeze and it takes away a few. My GPS also shows me the U.S. boundary line and when I cross it I think, "How cool is that.. I'm back in the States." Then almost immediately I think, O - S H I T!!!  In my rush to leave Bimini, I forgot to clear Customs. Puhleeze don't tell me I have to backtrack…I can't be the only one to have this brain-fart…Surely there are plenty of fishermen that have returned without clearing… O - S H I T !!! I reach for my phone to google it. No signal. The remainder of my trek is tainted with angst.

Port Everglades Inlet is rough…and busy. Cruise ships, Coast Guard operations, Freighters and their pilot ships, Police and idiots like myself. It's dark by the time I enter the congestion and I'm somewhat blinded by all of the lights of the city. Fortunately, my GPS stored my previous pass through Lauderdale so that now all I have to do is follow it in reverse. I follow it a mile or two north and find a spot to anchor for the night. Now…to Google that immigration question. Looks like I'm okay…according to the internetz, you don't have to clear out of the Bahamas if you're heading further south or returning to the States. Whew. I do have to clear back in to the US though. Remind me to do that. 

After 8 solid days at harbor, I sailed roughly 175 miles in 3 days.