Passage to the Bahamas

After one night in Fort Lauderdale anchorage, we decided to leave the next evening for a 36 hour sail all the bay to the Eleutheras island in the Bahamas.

This decision was based on many hours reviewing weather and wave heights and wind directions and also an enquiry to weather passage consultant Chris Parker who look at the departure date and locations and destinations to see if we should make for a reasonable passage of wind, waves and weather. We spent all day preparing the boat for the passage by tying things down and removing the dinghy motor and preparing food for the passage.

We left Fort Lauderdale about 6pm as the sun was setting and heading due east with high waves and reasonable wind that was dropping.

The first part across the Gulf Stream was as planned with 15 knot south west winds.

After we passed the Gulf Stream, winds increase well beyond predicted to 35 knots and 3-6 waves from south making for saltier conditions than predicted for about 4 hours.

We had to avoid several ships and adjust sails and one tug pulling a tow vessel alerted us on vhf that we were in collision course with its tow barge so we had to quickly tack to avoid this smaller tug.

We arrived in hatchet bay Eleutheras at about 8:30 am after 36 hours of sailing, motoring when winds died or had a poor angle to sail.

We anchored and works to set the boat for local sail hops in The Bahamas.