Crossing to the Bahamas

 The Crossing

At 8:45 we cast off the lines and left Lake Worth. We followed our friends on Ruahk and at the inlet Absolutely, another boat we met at Vero Beach, fell in line behind us. It was a pitch black night with no moon, but as we left the lights of Palm Beach behind us, millions of stars appeared. There are so many more stars out there when you're not surrounded by the lights of cities and towns. The wind and seas weren't as calm as we had hoped, but it was still a fine crossing. The adults on the other boats took turns sleeping, but my mom was a little too nervous to sleep. My dad caught a couple quick naps in the cockpit. Being ever the science teacher, Mom had us take temperature readings, and we recorded the latitude and longitude as we crossed the Gulf Stream. Later, we hope to graph the position of the Gulf Stream. Michael and I had some time in the cockpit initially, but were able to get a lot of sleep. Erin fell slept early, but then woke up and stayed up till 4, helping Mom keep watch while Dad slept. We passed several big ships during the night (two were cruise ships) and it was easy to see them, but it was hard to tell how far away they were and what direction and speed they were traveling. Thankfully, Ruahk has an AIS system which identifies the name, heading and speed of anything within several miles. That made us feel much more comfortable. One benefit to having a very dark night was that shortly after the glow from Palm Beach faded, we could see the glow of lights from Freeport. As soon as the sun came up we were able to see land. The morning was fun, we saw flying fish (which are fish that actually leap out of the water and flap their fins like wings) and I saw what I think was a sea turtle. The water was a bright blue color, and as we approached our entrance channel, we were amazed that we could see the bottom at 16 feet! On our way in, we raised our yellow quarantine flag, which shows that we have not yet cleared customs. We tied up in Port Lucaya and only the captain of the boat was allowed to get off and go to the customs office. He came back with a ton of paperwork to fill out, but when he returned, we were cleared to stay for 120 days (we had heard reports about some people only getting 30 days, so it was a big relief).

The Bahamas

 Wednesday was a sunny warm day here, so we decided to dinghy back out the channel to a beach. Ruahk joined us, and it was chilly but we still managed to get in some swimming. The wind was picking up so the dinghy ride back was quite an adventure, with waves coming over the bow. We're staying in Lucaya a few days because of windy weather, so tonight we met Ruahk for another fun game of Catan. This weekend we plan to leave for the Berry Islands.