On to Great Sale Cay. April 2 Day 11. Miles 48.8 Total miles 367.8

Day 11

We slipped our lines from the Old Bahama Bay Marina and Resort

We left with eight other boats past the marina break wall and headed north and east to take the channel that leads into Little Bahama Bank. The Bank is between the north barrier islands and Grand Bahama Island. See the chart below. The first one shows the cut we had to negotiate and the second one shows almost all of the Northern Abacos -Bahamas.

Following our waypoints, we navigated through the small islands and shoals just north of West End Grand Bahama to gain access to the Little Bahama Bank. It is another sunny day with winds 8-12 knots and seas one foot or less.

As we exit the shoal areas, we head East Northeast toward Mangrove Cay, water color becomes more aquamarine with depths of mostly 10 feet. The waters are so clear, you can see the all the way through to the bottom.

We are traveling with two navigational tools, Garmin and AquaMaps as we must rely on our electronics and compass and our eyes to navigate through the Bahamian waters. There are no real marks to guide the boater, like we have in the USA.

The power cruisers that left the marina a bit before us are long gone, as they the have the speed way beyond our 8 knot average speed. But we did have quite a few sailboats out on the waters with us, some leaving the Bahamas and other just arriving here.

After three hours, we covered the 21.5 miles to get to Mangrove Cay. Yes, it is a small uninhabited island covered with mangroves and shrubs.

We then head further east to head towards Great Sale Cay, 20.5 miles away. On this stretch, Bill turned up the pirate and island music to serve to create our island ambiance onboard. We also had more wind which caused our boat to get "wet".

About 2.5 hours later, we pulled into the natural harbor of Great Sale Cay to anchor. We have since been joined by 5 other boats. This cay is flat and is covered with low lying mangrove, small pines and shrubs with a narrow beach and exposed limestone rock along the shore.

Since there was no good way to get through the thick mangroves and shrubs, we abandoned the idea of exploring.

June 4-5. Day 63-64. On to Cape May New Jersey. 53.4nm. Total 1534 miles.

Left Delaware City at 5:35am to be able to take advantage of the strong currents going with us while traversing Delaware River and Delaware Bay. The Delaware River goes south about 15 miles and flows into the Delaware Bay. As we travel south, New Jersey is to the east and Delaware is to our west. We are traveling just outside the shipping channel and are really moving at 10.9 knots. That is three knots faster than we normally travel, as the outgoing tides are pushing us along. Nice to have Mother Nature helps us save on fuel. The Delaware River is about 8 miles wide so there is plenty of room for the freighters and the pleasure boats. So far, we have not encountered any commercial traffic, but there is a large freighter behind us that will eventually pass us as they travel at 14 knots. The Delaware Bay proper varies from 23-29 miles wide and 26 miles long. There are five lighthouses on the Delaware marking the shipping channel. We went by Ship J...

Reflections on the Bahamas

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Day 64 We started early to get ahead of the holiday boat traffic. Weighing anchor at Lake Sylvia in Fort Lauderdale, we traveled on the Intracoastal Waterway past the iconic Pier 66 Tower and Bahia Mar Marina. We then turned north and passed the older sections of the city - Las Olas( older homes), Galt Ocean Mile (one mile of condominiums on the beach), and the famous miles of beaches on the Atlantic. I used to live here in the early 70's and the biggest change I see is the older smaller homes on the water are being replaced with larger versions and a few more condo towers have been built. As we go further north towards Commercial Blvd, North Fort Lauderdale, and Pompano Beach and its Lighthouse at the cut, there is less reconstruction. The next town we traveled through was Boca Raton with its Spanish architecture, Camino Real and its landmark tower. The sand bar at the cut was just beginning to fill up with Memorial Day revelers as we went by. Next were t...

Crustacean Travels

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