Lucaya Bahamas

 After a day of 10 hours on the water that started somewhere around 4:30 a.m. we have arrived in Lucaya on Grand Bahama.

 The trip started on the new river at 6:15 am when we went to leave the wall and spin Freedom around for the trip down the New River from Ft. Lauderdale. The first photo gives you an idea just how narrow this river is. It also implies what it must be like to spin a large boat around and head down stream. There are mega yachts all over the place and channel 9 has several "Security" broadcasts being issued. The passages are narrow and one does not want to meet a 100 footer in some of the kinks.
 We were located just the other side of the bridge in the back ground because we needed an early start and that bridge did not start opening until 7:30 am. With that, at 6:15 am we shoved off in darkness and proceeded to spin Freedom around. As I approached perpendicular to the river, Deb yells look out!! I freak and see a commercial boat ripping up stream headed right for us. So he stops and I leave room. He gets pushy, I hold still. He relents and lets me flip the boat around.

 An ugly start but we got 'er done.

 So on down the "miracle mile" we head looking at houses of all sorts. They have mansions and quaint old houses that were built decades ago mixed in here and there. The old ones survive because they have refused to sell out. It's an odd mix but it works imho.

  Anyway out the inlet we went and we hit the Gulf Stream. It hit us back again and again. While the water was not high at 2-3 it was of a short duration that we figure was not more than a few seconds. We were constantly pounding or rolling as it was hitting us smartly off the port bow. This went on for about 3 hours and then subsided. If you look at the image of the WxWorx screen you will see the wave predictions we depended on to make the trip. We knew it would be a bit rough to start. Eventually we were hoping it would lay down as we approached the Southern side of Grand Bahama. That turned out to be the case. What did not turn out to be the case was that the initial water was 2-3 with some 4 footers in there and they were only a few seconds apart. Sort of like 3 foot chop ok? This area was forecast to be 2 feet or less. Ugh. Fortunately it was calm for the last half of the trip so the "gambit" played well. By the way darker colors to green mean larger waves. The contour lines indicate the period.

And yes, it was a while before Dan could take a break from the driving. Next time perhaps I'll only have one cup of coffee in the morning.
I've started a new photo bucket album and that is listed to the left of the blog main page. Along with that I also have more GPS data. You'll see a couple of dodges in the track. We had a container ship catch and pass us along the way so we left some extra room off the rhumb line. If you zoom in on the track to Lucaya you will see that it's obvious when I was using the autopilot and when I was not. Early on it was rough and I chose to pick different courses to make the ride as smooth as I could. Once it laid down, we dialed her in and let her have her stride. All 10 blazing knots of it.

 All in all it was an Ok call to move to Ft. Lauderdale and skirt some of the rough water. Given how the NOAA forecasts were a bit off lately based on some grumblings we've heard we hoped a more Southern starting point would be to our advantage. Sure we could have waited another day but the way the forecasts have been flip flopping around less wave heights off West Palm and how there were consistently lower heights to the South we gave it a shot and it paid off. It might well have been 3-5 off West Palm today.