Bullocks Harbour
02 January 2016 | Bullocks Harbour
We're up at 5 am and thing's are looking good for a departure, at 6 am we are out the inlet and heading across the Gulf stream to Great Harbour Cay in the Berry Islands, a 26 hour trip if things go well. The winds are SE at about 10 knots, it's a bit lumpy but not to bad. Our boat speed is not good though, with the wind and current against us sometimes we are only doing 2 knots. Thing's pick up after we leave the Gulf stream and by the time we are in the NW Providence Channel we are doing close to 7 knots. Lots of ship traffic out there especially cruise ships, at one time in the night we had 7 of them coming at us from all directions, they are lit up so much that it's hard to tell what navigation lights they have, it's all one big mass of lights. We made it through them, the closest we came to one was 1/4 mile, a bit to close for us especially in the dark. We had made radio contact with them and were supposed to pass port to port, it became obvious that was not happening as the more to we turned to get away from them the closer we were getting, we ended up passing starboard to starboard, maybe they didn't even see us and we blended in with all the rest of the lights out there.
At 9 am we are entering Bullock's Harbour on Great Harbour Cay, There's more bad weather coming and we were hoping to have a slip at the marina to wait it out, the marina is full and there's a waiting list so we decide to clear in with customs and move on to find a secure anchoring spot. Doing customs was a breeze , one of our better experiences, they gave us a 120 day cruising permit and fishing licence, probably longer than what we'll be needing, in any case we can always have it extended. $300.00 later we are out the door and heading for our favorite anchorage, hopefully there won't be many boats there.