Docked - Slip C-17 port side to, bow in Old Bahama Bay Marina, West End, Grand Bahama Island

Reflections of yesterday - As I write this I am watching and feeling the cold front approach us from the North. This was a major factor in our leaving yesterday as we would have been stuck in Florida until that front subsided. Yesterday we left the dock 6:24 AM and made it to the Hillsboro Bridge for the 7AM opening. We knew the inlet would be bouncy from the SE wind direction blowing straight into inlet that faces that direction. Lots of charter boats and about a 50’ motor yacht all exited into the ocean. Susan started do all the things below to keep order of the boats interior. That is she put a strap around the refrigerator door, secured many things into the sink, coffee pot, cups and moved many things to the galley deck so they would fall. We both waited to get into the deeper calmer water. Well, that never happened. The wind was not that strong and was supposed to steadily decrease throughout the day. That did not happen. Instead we had 10-15 knot winds out of the SE. We were headed almost due east so that put the swells on our starboard bow for the entire day. The strange thing was there were confused seas with short chop coming from many directions. My course all day long would be due east with the gulf stream setting me north most of the day. Our charted course was 065º and we averaged that by steering 090º. So, the waves were hitting the bow mostly. But then, every once in a while we would get converging waves at 90º angles and also waves at our stern. We had decided if we didn’t get a good vibe about this passage by about 10 miles out we could turn and head back into Lake Worth Inlet to the North. This would put the wind and waves at our stern and Liquid
Therapy handles pretty good in a following sea. But we stayed to course after a few hours and realized it was not dangerous. But, it certainly wasn’t going to be pleasant.

Somewhere out there my depth finder stopped working at 1076’. Hey, that’s pretty deep. All day long it would read that last reading until I came up on the Bahama bank. The deepest water was 2554’. I couldn’t see the bottom.

The Gulf Stream, and the ocean in general are a beautiful deep blue color that are just hard to describe. It was not too bouncy that we didn’t take in just how pretty the oceans are . But it was too rough to operate a camera. I tried a few times with the boat rolling and pitching. But I couldn’t compose much holding on with 1 hand trying to aim the camera while pulling G forces in many directions. Instead I took in the scenery in my brain at least. I saw dolphins, what appeared to be sailfish, and something playing with the dolphins that looked like a tuna. The fin of that fish was very different from the dolphin it was swimming with. Flying fish were very common with our boat approaching their school and all of them taking off like a covey of quail. But it was too rough and unpredictable for me to ever get a picture.

One great thing about these rough conditions is how well the hull of Liquid Therapy handles the ocean. We hardly ever run the boat in ocean conditions and the boat behaves quite interesting working with the waves and slicing into the water. It never pounds. We never took a wave over the bow. However, the anchor got smacked by a few waves and water shot up through our hawse pipes like a fire house was shooting water up through them. I often see water spray splash though the hawse pipes, but I’ve never had waves enter them until yesterday. Quite a sight for sure, but the boat took it all in stride.

Now as you all may recall in the past that I was routinely getting water out of my starboard fuel tank. That all had subsided. But, while the boat was being tossed about I couldn’t help but wonder if the fuel tanks were being agitated and maybe I might be picking up water and other debris from the 38 year old starboard fuel tank. I did engine room checks about every hour. I was glad to report the Racor filter was not showing any water or other debris. I can switch to a fresh fuel filter while the engine is running. When the tanks are full I have to burn off some fuel in the starboard tank before switching to both tanks as the starboard fuel tank receives excess fuel not used by the injector pump. If I run both fuel tanks when the tanks are full the starboard tank will eventually fill up and start dumping fuel into the ocean. So, I have to manage my fuel tank operation.

In rough conditions steering the boat with autopilot is usually not a good idea. Autopilots will work harder when being knocked off course than a human. The autopilot adjusts the rudder constantly. It’ tough on the hydraulic autopilot pump and is rather inefficient. It’s better to hand steer and let the boat get knocked off course, add rudder correction and wait for the boat to slowly move around to your intended heading as the wave action subsides. I turned the response level down to it’s lowest setting and the autopilot steered very much the way I do in bad conditions. We were getting knocked ± 20º of my intended course of 090º. The auto pilot would average all of this out and I was quite pleased to use the autopilot as this gave me both hands to hang on with. I needed to hang on lots.

So, what did we eat? Or, could you eat? Or, were you going to keep anything down. Well gang, it was one of those coke-a-cola and nabs days. I ate 1/2 of a granola bar and drank a coke. Other than that it was water. Lots of water. Susan didn’t feel like eating much either. Neither of us got seasick. I think Susan might have been close to seasickness a few times but she hung in there.

Moving about the boat in the conditions requires much caution. Hey if you fall over here, you aren’t swimming ashore like you could easily do in the ICW. Both of us had our life jackets on. I would call her on our intercom phones whenever I left the fly bridge for her to watch me come down. I can’t think of a worse scenario than falling overboard with the boat on autopilot and Susan not noticing that I was gone for an hour or so. Same for her. I usually know when she is coming out on deck for something because usually I have a request for her to bring me something to drink etc. I did run the boat from the lower helm for much of the trip. But, I like being up high where I can see more of the boat and approaching waves, land and sea-life. And, I felt better outside than inside the rolling cabin. Anyhow, she stayed inside and we talked over the phone often.

The Garmin Chart-plotter kept giving me ETAs of between 4:30 to 5:15PM early on in our passage. I only could see two other boats most of the day. We were both surprised getting called on our VHF radio from the boat Lucile. They had been with us in Lighthouse Point Yacht Club and had left from Ft. Lauderdale. They were also going 18 knots with a good angle on the waves. Still had a hard time believing they could go that fast in those conditions. But they were headed on a much more northerly course at that speed. I kept looking at the ETA it seemed to really like 4:26PM. I had made slip reservations the day before and it sort of sounded like we might be the only boat coming into Old Bahama Bay. But as we got closer more boats showed up on my AIS and there was a convergence going on to get in there. Lots of boats had left from Lake Worth about 40 miles north of where we left. And, two had left Ft. Lauderdale. Everyone had a tough day and all of us were wondering how NOAA weather and other sources had gotten the forecast so wrong. All of us were really tired.

I hauled up our yellow quarantine flag a few miles out when it got a bit easier to move around the boat. I called the dock master on the VHF and got our slip assignment. We got tied up without any problem.

It was filling out time for the customs and immigration forms. After Susan and I did all the paper work I took it over to the customs office and got in line with a bunch of other people having a hard time standing upright and still. Only the master of the vessel is allowed off the vessel to go to customs. After cleared and the quarantine flag is lowered the crew can go ashore. So, Susan had to stay aboard while I did the formalities. All of us in the customs line were all sill bouncing in our heads from the boat motion. Slow interview process too.

Then back to the boat to remove the quarantine flag and put up the Bahamian courtesy flag. It’s dark. I’m tired. Which way is up on the Bahamian flag. Putting it upside down means you have declared war on that country. I’m too tired to figure it out or look it up until the morning. I can’t see any other boats flags to check it out. I decide I’d rather not fly the Bahamian flag than accidentally declare war on the Bahamas. It would be bad to wake up surrounded by the Bahamian Navy. I’d surrender right away. The customs officer will probably notice it’s not flying is my only worry.
Susan fixes a salad for dinner. I eat, take a shower and hit the bed.
Yesterday’s picture is Old Bahama Bay Marina this afternoon. Yep I’m confused.