West End to Green Turtle Cay

Our first night in the Bahamas was quite peaceful.  Sweet Pea, a fellow Looper who we had rafted up with a few times on the rivers arrived at Old Bahama Bay after we did. It was good to see them again and now they were flying a gold Looper flag since they completed their Loop trip.  Due to impending weather we all decided to leave today, Friday and head for an anchorage at Great Sayle Cay.  We left a bit earlier as we typically will run at a slower speed, between 7 and 8 knots.  All the other Loopers have twin engines while we only have a single.  The first couple of hours were nice then the wind an rollers picked up and we had to speed up some to make the ride tolerable.  Even doing that all the other boats slowly pulled ahead of us. Due to the forecasted south winds we anchored in the lee of the island rather than the preferred harbor. 

The harbor is supposed to be great in all winds expect those from the south. There were many boats anchored with us.  We lowered the dinghy and John used the lookie bucket and reported that the anchor as well as 10’ of chain were completely buried.  We all then went to shore for a beach cocktail hour.

It was quite windy overnight and we neglected to wrap up the Looper flag on the bow.  The main stateroom is in the bow and the noise from the flag flapping in the breeze made sleeping difficult until John got up and wrapped it up.  Even then Mary slept in the main cabin because she didn’t like the noise of the waves against the hull. All in all we did manage to get some sleep.

On Saturday we all pulled anchors and were on the move by 6:15am, our plan was to get up early and leave at  “0 dark thirty” as Kerm would say in order to get a jump on the group.  Because of problems getting to sleep we didn’t make the early start.  We had another day like the last, started out ok but wind and waves picked up and were with us until we arrived at Green Turtle Club Marina.  It was even quite windy once we arrived at the marina which made docking a bit of a challenge. 

The colors of the waters were amazing on the trip today, we tried taking pictures but I’m afraid they won’t truly convey what we saw.

There was a problem with our water connection and it took us a while to get a hose connected.  Once that was done it was time to give the boat a thorough scrubbing.  Due to the amount of salt spray today there were times that it was difficult to see the instruments.  The boat was just crusty, this is something new to these freshwater boaters and we don’t like it at all.  Now mind you we probably go overboard in keeping the boat clean but still all the salt is gross.

After getting most of the salt off the boat, I don’t think we will ever get it all until we get up the Hudson next June we went and checked in.  This marina was having a special docking rate.  Your restaurant/ bar bill is reduced by whatever is spent on dockage until the dockage is free.  To get this special the rate is a bit higher but no more than any of the other marinas we are planning to stop at so it seemed to be a good deal. 

Our tentative itinerary is to spend five nights here then move to an anchorage for one night then on to another marina.  We will repeat this for the month, with a one night at anchor between each marina.  John likes to anchor out while Mary is none to keen about it so this seems to be a reasonable compromise. Our next marina will be Marsh Harbor, then Hope Town, which is on Elbow Cay, then Treasure Cay followed by Port Lucaya.  Our last stop before crossing back to the states will be back at West End, which is where we first arrived.  All of this is weather dependent.

We went to the bar for a drink and had our first rum concoction, called the Tipsy Turtle, which was quite good.  At the bar was as a couple on a sailing catamaran from Maryland who were in West End with us as well at the anchorage last night.  They have been here before and said the way to get the most bang for your buck with the dockage special is to have breakfast and a late lunch rather than dinner.  It seems like a good tip and I think we will do that.  We invited them to have dinner with us an all the fellow Loopers.   We all had a good time and called it a night early as many of us were tired from the lack of sleep at the anchorage.

Tomorrow we will take the bikes into the town of New Plymouth.  This will be our first experience in seeing an actual Bahamas town.  There is a Bahamas telephone office there and we hope to get a sim card for  our unlocked phone that will allow us to call within the Bahamas for a decent rate and also call the states once in a while to check in.  We have been told that you can also get a sim card for the I Pad and sign up for a month long unlimited data plan.  We will see.

John & Mary