We sailed across the great Bahamas banks today. We left the harbor at Bimini at 4am along with two other boats. All of us were unprepared for the swells at the entrance; we buried the bow and took a wave in the hatch, stuff went flying!! The boat ahead of us was not so lucky and had a fuel problem that required them to sail back and forth until they could get towed back into the harbor. They told us later via email that the tow boat landed them on the dock at 4 knots; not pretty.

After the excitement of leaving the harbor in the dark, the Great Bahama Bank was pretty incredible. 80 miles with a maximum depth of 15 feet. Very eerie. That was a huge day...80 miles but great sailing in pretty calm waters. A flying fish jumped into Holly's lap while we were underway so we put a line in and caught dinner. We intended on anchoring in Bullocks harbor off of Great Harbour Cay (Berry chain) but it was too rough.

We ended up staying at Great Harbor Key Marina. This was an introduction to how nutty the harbor entrances can be: it was 50 foot wide channel cut into pure coral. Fun place, neat island (one of the places we explored was the ruins of frank sinatras getaway, which I suppose now is owned just for its golf course and the house left to rot) but the most special thing there were the manatees. There are 6 of them that live there...the dock guy told us they like fresh water so we ran the hose in the water and they sucked on it like a bottle!