Days 42-43 March 27-28 – Honey Queen Adventures

Ft. Lauderdale to West End/Bahamas

Saturday morning, 7 am, we met Steve and Susie at the fuel dock across the ICW to top off our tanks before crossing. After 45 minutes there, we headed out to sea (literally). The forecast called for a pretty rough start that would settle around noon, if we could endure it. The start was exactly that. But because we were going ENE and the wind/waves were from the ESE, the boat responded much better today than it had yesterday. It was rough, but not scary or rolling. Our boat is considered a passagemaker, meaning it has the capacity, though small, to cross the ocean. This crew DOES NOT have that capacity, so we will never know. The Honey Queen had no issues today in these seas. As promised by our weather guru, the seas did calm almost on cue, around noon.

There’s a good reason why they call this bluewater. It absolutely takes your breath away, being so close to it.

The salty spray of the ocean when the boat would dip became the norm of the day.

The day was very long, but we managed fine. We experienced our first day in the Gulfstream, the warm South to North flowing waters. The stream often feeds and strengthens hurricanes. For us, we gained speed with the current pushing us. Our forecasted day of 10 hours turned out to be only 9. We were very happy to see land and the Old Bahama Bay Marina about 5 pm.

The crossing behind us, we went to the customs office to clear. All the hours spent on line, loading info, passports, Covid tests, completing the health visas, etc., was seemingly wasted. Their websites are not user friendly, and also inaccurate. Info we had input was not there when they opened up our files. Better lucky than good, my process only took just over an hour. The young lady helping me was the best. Her attitude and computer skills helped me work through and locate all the missing data that I had already entered before crossing. She had no name tag, but if I could, I would put in a good word to her boss. I hope to see her here again when we head back to the states. Steve was not quite so lucky. He walked out just before 8 pm, finally cleared. The guy he had “helping” needed a helper. We learned later that night that the fishermen who come to the Bahamas regularly, fill out the paperwork on the spot upon arrival. They skip all the “easy” prep work that can be done online. Lesson learned.

The western sky…our first Bahamian sunset, from Old Bahama Bay Marina.

We ate fried shrimp at the little roadside stand adjacent to the marina. We made a game plan with our buddy boat team to be ready to leave at 8 am, when the marina opened (to verify our bill was correct).

West End to Great Sale Cay

Sunday morning, we ended up leaving closer to 9 am, after learning we were charged for water (common in the Bahamas. We purposely had not used any, but since we had to pay, we topped off our water tanks and rinsed about an inch of salt from the starboard side of the boats.

The breakwall at the entrance/exit of Old Bahama Bay Marina.

Today’s destination was Great Sale Cay, a trip of about 42 miles. Days like this really make me appreciate our autopilot. Most of the journey was long straight runs with very few waypoints, so the boat pretty much drives itself. My job is to soak in the glorious views and keep a close eye on that depth gauge. We had a quiet ride all day, got anchored in the byte of the little island, providing a little wind protection, and then I splashed the dinghy.

We picked up Steve and Susie and cruised over to the beach. We explored, picked up a few shells, and headed back to our mother ships. After Steve and I planned our day trip for Monday, we had dinner on our boats, and crashed (as soon as Amanda watched The Equalizer).

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