Casted off at 6:30 on Thursday morning headed for the Berry Islands. Our dock neighbour Mike was there to help us release the lines and say good bye. The air was thick with smoke from a fire that was burning a couple of miles further down the shore since the previous day. We didn't hear any sirens at all during this period so who knows what was going on.

https://youtu.be/4TuEWtXBT_0?si=AXECCHFUinxF9Syu

Low tide was at 4:30 but even with 2 hours of it rising we were still in pretty shallow water getting out of the channel into the deep ocean water. Can you say 3400' deep! I guess at the end of the day if it's over your head then it really doesn't matter how deep it is.

It was overcast and cool until early afternoon so hoods and tuques were in order for part of the journey. We started out motoring and had a bit of trouble hitting 6 knots even though we had a following sea and wind from the port stern quarter. I think our speed was cut down a bit as we usually can do about 6.5 knots at 2500 rpm because our hull had some growth on it from sitting in a slip for almost 2 months. We set our sails and motored for a few hours. But the wind picked up to the 10-13 knot range so we shut the engine down and enjoyed some real sailing hitting 7 knots for part of the trip. Nice change to have the wind and waves coming from the same direction and pushing in the direction we wanted to go.

There were 4 other sailboats that left the Bell Channel at approx. the same time as us, 2 catamarans, a 43' sloop and a 36' sloop. The cats didn't waste any time taking off as they cruise a lot faster than displacement mono hulls. We heard the other boats talking on the vhf and they were motor sailing but we were extending the gap as they fell further behind. That should be happening with a 43' boat as they have a higher max hull speed than our 35' boat. Amaruq is pretty quick!

The Bahamian Air Force (flying fish) escorted us throughout the day displaying their amazing abilities once again. Lots of Sargasso Sea Weed in the water as well but we didn't get snagged on any of it.

We pulled into the anchorage at Great Stirrup Cay in the Berry Islands being very cautious as the water is quite shallow, especially at low tide, which it was then. The Anchorage is pretty small and there was 1 catamaran with the hook down right in the middle of the area making it difficult for any other boats to anchor. Cats take up a lot of room as many of them are twice as long as they are wide. We did a loop of the surrounding water checking the depths so we could gauge if we had deep enough swing room after calculating how much chain we needed to deploy. We found a spot and set the anchor.

Up until now we have had our depth sounder set to show zero meaning we are in 5' of water with next to no depth left under the bottom of our keel. The problem is that the lowest reading it will register is 0.1 ft so anything less won't show on the gauge. We draw 4'10" so we have no idea we're out of water between the 4'10"-5'1" range until we feel the keel drag in the sand. Seeing as the Bahamas is the home of shallow water I measured the depth of tap water under the boat and reset the depth sounder to the actual water depth plus 3" so I still have a buffer. So now when it shows 5' we still have 2" until we get to 4'10" plus a 3" buffer. Hopefully this will help as we did drag a bit in the sea grass getting into this spot this afternoon.

A few minutes after we were settled the Australian guy on the catamaran came out and started pacing back and forth on his boat yelling at us about how we were blocking him from leaving early in the morning. He couldn't tell me what time he was leaving but I told him that there was 7' of water in the area ahead of him and that was at low tide and there was room to get around us. I asked how much water he drew and he said 4', so I asked what's the problem? If he left any time between 5 and 10 am, the water depth would be even higher than what it now. No answer just kept pacing and bitching and then finally went back into his boat. We couldn't believe the arrogance of this guy acting like it was his own private anchorage while he took up the space that 3 other boats could utilize. Clearly an example of AuSTRAYlian CAT STRUTing! You meet all kinds out here!

(This 1 is a bit of stretch to fit into the storyline!)
https://youtu.be/vEtbfzMLVWU?si=oKbzj_47dMhs8bOR

Today's shot of the sun rise at 7 am peaking through the clouds, again shining in the direction we were heading like a beacon similar to the day we crossed from Lake Worth to West End on November 19th.