Jan 27, 2023 On to the Berrys

 After arriving in the dark the night before, West End gave us an easy check-in with customs and immigration first thing in the morning.  First thing in the morning here is about 10 am- we're on Bahamas time now.  We decided to take the day to relax at the marina and spend another night here celebrating that after all the planning and anticipation we are indeed now in the Bahamas. <Exhale>

In the prior post we talked about meeting Todd and Susan and Elsa here. This was just the start to our socialization into the cruising community.  Tied aft of us we meet Thomas and Carol on Sweet Caroline, a boat we had seen in St Augustine.  Behind Sweet Caroline rode the catamaran Chacaro with Patty and Brian.  Todd asked for a little help with getting off the dock early the next morning ( long before the marina staff is around), which started the conversation of destination plans for tomorrow. Both these boats are headed to the Berrys with their new owners, which is our plan also. So now we are a fleet of three departing the narrow West End channel at 5 am in the darkest of darks to make the 80 miles to the Berrys and have anchor down before sunset. 

Everyone got away fine, Second Star leaving last and taking it very slowly between the rocks at the narrow marina's entrance. Once out in the ocean we motored south a couple miles just to relax and wind down a bit after the challenge of navigating the pass in the dark again  (…we came into the same pass in the dark the previous night also).

Then it was sails up and running south on a very fine north easterly breeze. We started with reduced sail area just to see what wind develops as the sun comes up. But a couple hours later we are in full sail and ripping south averaging around 9.5 knots.   We even catch a little counter current from the Gulf Stream that pushes us up well over 10 knots for a few hours.  

It was a perfect sailing day and we enjoyed being out on the ocean again.  Lois made beautiful bannock breads to dip in Tuscan White Bean soup…perfect lunch.  

We threaded between several large ships that use this New Providence Channel to pass through the Bahamas on their way from Asia via the Panama Canal to ports in Europe.  The water here is thousands of feet deep.

We came up onto the shallow bank of the Berrys around 3 pm.  It is stunning to go from water too deep for the depth sounder to read but is marked 2200 ft on the charts to suddenly 700 feet, to 25 feet in about as long as it takes to count to 100.  The intense blues of the water are absolutely breathtaking. In a few days our eyes will be accustomed to the colors but for now it is something for the artist & nature lover to savor.

 Minutes later we are on the bank in 15 feet of water still moving over 10 knots across  the water.  Time to slow this bus down!  We furl the jib and drop to a seemingly slow 7 knots.  Dagger boards were pulled up so we will only draw about 3 feet- just in case.  We are scanning the water for a stake that marks the safe water route across the bank, and between the rocks.  Turns out the stake exists only in the world of digital cartography, but we find the way. 

Coming across the shallow bank we calibrated our Bahamian water reading skills,  calling out the actual depth as we pass over areas of light color (sand) and dark green color (grass) and especially watching for dark brown or black (rock that rises up to be a hazard).  Having enough daylight to read the water is why we departed West End early in the morning.  

Up ahead the harbor is loaded with boats. This harbor is an excellent place to ride out the harsh easterlies forecast for tomorrow, and it appears everyone has the same idea. But since we are shallow draft introverts we choose to anchor off around the corner and some distance from the crowd at a place called Cistern Cay.  It's safer to have more space in case anyone drags anchor.

To anchor we search until we find a spot of sand (light color) in an expanse of green (grass), where we securely hooked in about 6 feet of water at high tide. Only took two tries, which was acceptably good considering there was still 19 kts of wind and the spot we were trying to hit was only about 15ft wide.

Sam got a trip to the nearby beach before sun down.  We settled in for the night at 7:30, but monitored our position at intervals to verify we were indeed exactly in the spot we had dropped the anchor.  It felt very good to get 12 hrs of sleep after lots of short nights and predawn departures.