Ft. Lauderdale to West End and Bahamas!

We were so glad to leave Ft. Lauderdale and  all of its hustle and bustle.  While the anchorage at Lake Sylvia was nice, shore access was a challenge  - especially finding a place to take Salty.  We did move to Sunrise Lake for a night so that we could access Coral Gables Yacht Club - that was better with a public park just across the ICW.  But still - this is not the "cruising" we were seeking.

On Friday, February18 (Janet's birthday), we left Ft. Lauderdale at the butt crack of dawn, making the 6am opening of the 17th street bridge.  It was a lumpy start as although winds were now favorable, they had been blowing hard for several days.  after an hour or so we got sails up with about 15kts on the beam.  Using the full main and code zero, we were making 7.5, 8, 9kts depending where we were in relation to the gulf stream.  The ride improved with every hour and was a darn good crossing.  We averaged over 7.7kts from anchorage to dock in West End.  We got a dock at Old Bahama Bay - which was very quiet.  Several boats came in about the same time as us.

Janet's Birthday

We cleared customs and immigration having completed the new on-line visa for everyone, Covid testing, and Click2Clear.  The process was fairly straightforward - with the exception of a few questions on Click2Clear.  So my advice - start early, use a computer not phone, and have reasonable internet access.

Bahamas is currently requiring a Covid test on day 2 of arrival, but there seems to be no way to report results - so rather than paying for a Bahamas test, we used our own rapid tests from home and photo-documented our results.  Let's see what happens!

West End to Great Sale Cay

On Saturday, conditions were good, but light wind several boats headed out towards Great Cape Sale.  We were first in to an empty anchorage.  Several closely followed including  Tra-Sea, new friends on Southern Breeze and Mirage.  

We had passed through Great Sale before, but with only a brief stop.  We needed to get Salty ashore and on the East Side access was very poor with gnarly limestone banks.  But we made it in for a brief walk.  The following day, we found the "Landing" marked vaguely on the charts which proved to be a rock wall (probably where a dock had been at some time) with a pathway to the nice sandy beach on the west side of the island.  We saw remnants of a NASA tracking station that was apparently used many years ago, but was likely destroyed in one of the hurricanes.  

West Side - Great Sale Cay

Great Sale Cay to Pensacola Cays

Salty at Pensacola Cay

After a beach walk, we loaded up for the next leg which was to take us to Pensacola Cay/Allens Cay.  It turned into a 33 mile beat into 20 kts wind and very lumpy 2-3 ft seas at about 2 second period.  Yuck!  But Pensacola cay is a way better stop and it looks like we may have a few more days with East winds.  But the crew I think is ready for a down day, so we will check weather and come up with a plan.  This afternoon, we plan to make the walk across the island to the Atlantic side.

We made the treck to the Atlantic side through the mangroves - it was really quite fun!  We made signs for our boat names and hung them in the memory tree there.  Unfortunately none of our previous ones had survived the hurricanes of he past few years!