Bahamas Bank stowaway
I listened to Chris Parker's weather this morning and he confirmed that the weather was still reasonable to make the Banks crossing and gulf stream crossing on Sunday and Monday. So we left Black Point at 7 am to make the sail all the way to Highborne Cay so that we could then head for Nassau on Saturday. Winds were almost dead aft of us, so we motor sailed until we made our turn near Warderick Wells. The wind was more of a broad reach and we had a pretty good sail right up until we were near the anchorage. We anchored for the night and made plans to leave for Nassau at 9 am the next day.

We departed Highborne Cay for Nassau at about 9 am in order to be on the Yellow banks near noon time when the sun is above us. The winds again were light and almost directly behind us. So we motor sailed the whole way. We got into Nassau and fueled up at Harbour View's fuel dock ($4.95/gal) and then headed for the southwest yacht anchorage. It turns out that the latest Cmap charts I have don't show that that anchorage was dredged and the red buoy placements and depths are all different. I anchored in 10 feet of water just south of the red buoy (maybe #6?) at 2 hours after low tide. Very little tidal current in that area and set to just one anchor all night with no change in position due to currents. The holding was very good in somewhat hard packed sand. The problem was with the loud music played from the beaches, the clubs and the booze cruises all day and into the night. Otherwise the anchorage was relatively calm as compared to the eastern harbor.

We left Nassau at 7am Sunday and headed towards the Northwest Channel marker. Winds were light to non-existent and behind us all the way so it was motoring for the next 24 hours-ugh! We reached the Banks by 3pm and were greeted by a (flock?, herd?, group?, School? (grin)) of dolphin playing in our bow wave. And further off to our port side, 30-40 more paralleling our path. Of course I was hoping we would avoid any of the isolated squalls that were predicted, but that wasn't to be. We skirted a mild squall and some lightning as we proceeded to Mackie Shoal. We dodged a couple more rain squalls along the way and were never hit with any of the heavy rain that we could see. Along the way we picked up a tired traveler - a small bird landed on the wheel as I was steering and paid no attention to me even though my hand was inches from his perch. He was content to crew during his stay and he steered well for his small size! He flew away and then returned and stayed with us for probably 20 miles trying several different perches aboard Koala along the way. That is until a large motor yacht heading back the other way passed us. He then deserted our ship and moved on to 'greener & larger pastures'! We passed by North Rock and admired the stillness in the moonlight (the light on North Rock was extinguished) as we set our heading to make Ft. Lauderdale just after sunrise on Monday. Needless to say we made it back safe and sound after a long 25 hr voyage and proceeded to nap before checking thru customs.

The end to another Bahamas adventure!