Stats for January 13, 2019

Origin: Bimini Sands Marina

Destination: middle of the Bahama Banks

Distance: 60.6 miles

Speed: 8 mph

Time on the Move: 7 hours and 37 minutes

We left Bimini Sands mid-morning heading out onto the Bahama Banks, with our ultimate destination being Chub Cay in the Berry Islands, but we planned on anchoring halfway in between overnight. Once you are east of Bimini, the water is shallow for a LONG time, like 10-15 feet deep for over 70 miles. This means that any winds will kick up big waves and will make the crossing very uncomfortable. (Funny how wind in shallow water=big waves and opposing wind in strong current=big waves. See?! There’s a lot to this weather planning stuff!) We were lucky enough to have very light winds forecasted and waves of under 2 feet predicted. We were also lucky enough to have most of the cruisers that were stuck in Bimini the last few days moving right along with us, so we had plenty of company, including Kent and Heather on Heartbeat.

We had a pretty long travel day so the kids did school work, played with their toys, and I’m sure they watched a movie, too. It is nice on these longer, easier (no shallow water or obstacles to avoid) passages to play games together, too. Thank goodness for autopilot!

Just about an hour before sunset we made sure we were about 1 mile off the “magenta line” and decided to drop anchor. The chartbooks map out clear paths to travel on and use magenta to highlight these paths, so quite often we call that the “sailing line” or the “magenta line.” It’s crazy to see how many boats travel EXACTLY on the sailing line– like ants marching–so we just made sure we were well off that line to anchor overnight. We also stayed pretty close to our buddy boat, left AIS and the VHF radio on overnight, as well as a few extra lights on on the sundeck so we were well lit in case anyone was traveling off the charted path at night.

As calm as those pictures make the water look, it was actually pretty rolly with a little swell coming at us all night. There is a big debate among boaters in the Bahamas about if they like to anchor on the Banks or travel through the night, and usually people say “only anchor if it is calm.” I would say NO–too rolly despite the “calm”–next time we would continue traveling through the night.

But I will say, the stars were amazing out there!! We sat on the bow and watched them for quite a while before bed, and I also went out in the cockpit in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep and was even lucky enough to see some shooting stars.

Here was our anchorage in the middle of the Banks. Bimini is to the west and Chub Cay/the Berries to the east. We were literally out in the middle of nowhere. As beautiful as it was out there, with the roll and the idea that lots of boats were continuing to travel through the night, it was a little unnerving just being out there in the open. Luckily the kids slept great, and they don’t worry about all those “what-ifs” like we do (ignorance is bliss!!).

We were up and moving again before sunrise the next day. What a beautiful time of day when you don’t have to head to work!!

Thanks for reading and following along!! We are definitely not in Kansas anymore!!