Friday, March 11, 2017: We got up around 5:00 (we didn’t really sleep a lot with anticipation of what was ahead of us). We double checked everything, made coffee, filled up the water tank, and cast off the lines right at 6:00am. It was just a short little easy idle out of the marina into the ICW. It was just barely getting light enough to see that there were some clouds on the eastern horizon. But with all the boat yards and marinas around us, and a very easy channel, we could see just fine. One Eye Dog would be just a few minutes behind us. The channel was well marked with lighted buoys & markers, since this is a primary inlet along the coast. (In fact, right after we left, a container ship came out, and a passenger cruise ship went in!) As we neared the Lake Worth Inlet to EXIT to the Atlantic, Mr. Sunshine was starting to wake up to light our path.
Good bye Palm Beach. Our last view of the U.S. for a few weeks!
A beautiful sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean. The water was beautifully calm for us. YAY! WHEW! And a big giant THANK YOU LORD!
Here we go… before we are out of cell service… West End is our destination! Captain set the Garmin GPS to go there, and “Auto” (that’s the auto-pilot) kept us on course. That made driving and navigation so much easier! 🙂
At about 45 minutes out, right after I took this screen shot of my phone, we confirmed that One Eye Dog was behind us and ready. (They had a little more activity in the channel than we did). Captain put her up to 16 knots, and we ran at that speed for 3 hours 15 minutes, until we had to slow down to enter the channel at West End. Island Girl ran great! Captain checked on the engines a couple of times, and all was well! I am so thankful that he is such a great mechanic, and had her in tip-top condition for this trip. We actually saw at least a dozen other boats on the crossing today, so we were not alone out there! We passed the sailboats, and the fast boats passed us. We saw 2 freighters. We were on course to possibly intersect with one, so One Eye Dog cranked her speed up for awhile and passed us. That big girl can move some water! As it turned out, the freighter adjusted his heading, so we didn’t have to do anything to avoid him. Look at that Atlantic Ocean! So nice.
Here’s Captain Kenny in his spot. We really didn’t feel like we were fighting the north flowing Gulf Stream much. Since we were going 16-17 knots, it had far less effect on us that it does on 7 knot trawlers or sailboats. And with the Garmin plotting and keeping us on course, it wasn’t difficult. We probably would have had a bit better speed without the side current, but it really wasn’t very noticeable. We had the wind at our tail when we left Lake Worth, and as we progressed, it changed to more southerly, so it was starting to hit us more on the starboard side. But the waves were still fairly small.
Land HO, Sir! That would be West End, Grand Bahama Island dead ahead! YIPEE!! You can see the side swell to the water here. But still pretty smooth!
At 10:00am – just 4 hours after casting off at Lake Worth, we pulled into the marina and requested docking to clear Customs. They were busy with lots of little fast boats, so after waiting in the basin for about 15 minutes, they finally put us in the slips on the left by the sail boats. Just as well since we planned to stay here tonight. They didn’t realize that – since most boats that arrive this early in the day just check in here, then move on further into Bahamian waters. The marina itself was fairly empty.
We had our yellow quarantine flag hoisted, so they knew we weren’t cleared yet. Captain took all the paperwork and passports to the customs office. It took over an hour to get all the paperwork done and through the process. And pay our $300 entry fee. But that also includes our fishing licenses. Now, if we only knew what and how to catch something!
The far end of this purple building is the Customs office. The building is still showing damage from Hurricane Matthew from summer 2016.
And this is the marina office.
The marina was hit by the hurricane, and still does not have power restored to the docks for the boats to hook up to. So the price to stay here is good, but everybody has to run their generators sometime each day to charge their batteries.
Here is where we are parked…
And here is one happy Admiral! 🙂 Isn’t that water amazing looking?
After we got all checked in, we took down the yellow quarantine flag, and hoisted the Bahamas Courtesy flag. Now it was time for some R&R. They have a very pretty beach right here. We are at Old Bahama Bay, which has the marina, and a hotel with a pool, beach bar, restaurant, etc.
And it was time to get wet in that amazingly beautiful water. Ellen went snorkeling and saw quite a lot of fishies!
Cute little hotel buildings. The hotel looks good, so their restoration efforts were prioritized here, which makes sense.
And a nice refreshing (cooler than the ocean) pool.
It was a very successful day! We talked with another AGLCA couple (Kent & Jane on ‘Rising Tide’) that came into the marina later in the day. We first met them a few days ago in Stuart at Loggerhead Marina. They said it was a little rougher than they liked in the afternoon out on the Atlantic. So glad we left at daybreak! By bedtime, the marina was completely full, and there were boats that had to anchor out, waiting to come in and clear Customs in the morning.
Friday was a good day!
Saturday the wind picked up a bit, and is supposed to be even windier on Sunday. It is going to take us two days to get to the next marina, with one night at anchor on the way. We all decided to just stay here for a couple more nights, and head east on Monday. So Saturday, we walked to the “town” of West End. This is the Queen’s highway. It was supposed to be just over a mile.
The ‘town’ is in shambles… from more storms and hurricanes than just the latest one. There were boats in yards everywhere (not on trailers), destroyed buildings; a real mess. Some buildings have trees growing in them, so I’m pretty sure that was from destruction before last summer! We could not figure out why they didn’t let this building fall – or better yet push it over! What a danger zone!
The church looked good, and it had beautiful stained glass windows. 
Main street.
And I loved this sign. Everybody must know where the Chicken Nest Restaurant is. I also understand the need for the sign. We saw piles and piles and piles of conch shells along the sea wall.
And here were some local conch fishers that we saw on our walk. They had fresh conch that they were catching, shelling, and selling for $2 per conch! If I had a hammer to tenderize it, and knew how to cook it, I should have bought some. Although we were 1.5 miles from the boat, and nothing to carry a slippery piece of shell fish with no shell in. I tried to get a picture of the front of the boat. The whole front starboard corner is gone, so there was always somebody sitting on the port side of the boat.
And then… the best part of the day! At 6:00, the bread lady came visiting the docks, selling fresh bread! She had 4 kinds of bread. I bought a loaf of banana, and a loaf of coconut (which looks like white bread but has yummy pieces of coconut in it!) This was so fun, and the bread was still warm and fantastic!! She only comes to the docks on Friday & Saturday, so we were lucky to be here!!
April, me, Alma the bread lady, and Ellen.
There is also Frank the conch salad guy who makes fresh conch salad at the dock. I’ll have to get a picture of him with is salad. He comes and visits each new boat that arrives each day. Everybody said it was really good. It had a whole pile of peppers in it, so I didn’t try it. We saw him in town by the conch fishermen, so we know his conch is fresh! And we’ve had several boats go out fishing, and come in with a variety of fish. One guy had Wahoo, which were big torpedo fish. He was cutting off what looked like roasts! They were chunks of meat the size of a full size Kleenex box! Lots of meat on a torpedo!
It’s all a fun adventure. Tomorrow the six of us are renting a van and piling in for a drive to Freeport. They drive on the left here. Stay tuned……
This is just to awesome. I am so jealous. More please!