Crossing the Gulf Stream

Her Story What an adventure! We left Marathon on Thursday and sailed up the Hawke Channel to Rodriquez Key, a little spit of land close to Key Largo. This place is known to cruisers as a good location to scoot over the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas. So we went to bed early and set the alarm for 3 AM. Before we knew it, we awoke in the dark, pulled up the anchor and motorsailed (using both the sails and motor) due East. It was dark out there with a starlit sky and smooth seas. We watched the sun rise to a beautiful day on the water and kept going and going. The Gulf Stream gave our s/v Eagle’s Wings more speed. I was surprised how calm it all was and how inky blue the Atlantic is! Just gorgeous! When we finally reached the shallower Great Bahaman Banks we could see the color of the water change to a turquoise blue. Here the water depth changes from thousands of feet in the Atlantic to 30 feet or less on the Banks.


We were in radio contact with our friends on s/v Blue Goose and s/v Cantagree. We all decided to go as far as we could before dark and anchored around 6:30 pm on the exposed Banks. The boat was rocking & rolling, but we managed to eat some canned stew and dropped into bed for some shuteye. It was tough sleeping with all the rocking going on and noise of the boat squeaking and lopping in the wind. We awoke at dawn and were underway again by 7:30 am, our destination was an island called Fraziers Hog Cay near Chub Cay in the Bahamas. It was another long motorsailing day on calm gorgeous water, too pretty to describe. We made it into a nice little anchorage along side the island where it was calm and picturesque with green foliage and even a little tiny place called the Berry Island Club. Again, it was early to bed after a great salmon dinner.

The next day we were up sailing by 7 am. It was an interesting 35 mile run into Nassau, the Capitol of the Bahamas. We had to radio Nassau Harbor Control and request permission to enter their harbor from the west. Permission was granted and before we knew it, we were tucked into Nassau Harbor Club. We raised our yellow “Q” flag (quarantine flag), which signals that we have to go through customs. Fortunately, customs is located in the marina. We checked in, showed our passports and paid the entry fee of $300. We were then instructed to take down the “Q” flag and fly the Bahaman flag. We celebrated our landfall by eating at a Chinese Restaurant close to the marina. Just yummy.

His Story  The sunset on twenty-six sailboats and two trawlers anchored on the North side of Rodriquez Key. Someone on the VHF said that Boot Key Harbor up and move to Rodriquez. All of us were staging ourselves to cross the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas.


Crews of Blue Goose, Cantagreee and Eagle’s Wings were up at 3 AM for a 3:30 AM departure. After crossing Molasses Reef, we set sail for South Riding Rocks, our entry point to the Great Bahamas Bank.

We motor sailed to keep our ground speed above 6 kts. For some time, we hit 8 kts with the help of the north flowing Gulf Stream. Winds were light most of the time shifting from SW to N later in the day. Seas at 1 -2 ft gave us a smooth ride on the deep blue water.

We entered the Great Bahamas Bank at 3:30 PM, raised our Q flag and continued on a course for Russell Beacon. We were told we would see starfish on the bottom as we crossed the shallow banks, but we didn’t as the water wasn’t flat. At 6 PM we anchored on the banks for a not so quiet night.

We had shifted our stores from the aft cabin to the vberth anticipating conditions to rough to catnap or sleep during our passage. The vberth is however much less noisy than the aft cabin. It is also much easier for two people to get in and out of the berth without having to crawl over each other. After the night on the banks, we shifted our sleeping arrangement back to normal.

Up and underway at 7:30 AM, we motored sailed on a course south of Russell Beacon and unto the charted course from Cat Island to Northwest Light. Northwest Light marks a relatively narrow passage from the bank to the Tongue of the Ocean. Again on blue water thousands of feet deep, we continued motor sailing to a very pretty anchorage on the south side of Frazer’s Hog Cay. Because we hadn’t cleared customs, we remained aboard for the night.

I took one sun sight with the sextant that Chuck loaned me while underway. I was off twelve miles but a lot of this could be watch error since I hadn’t checked my watch and I know its about eight seconds off. I will be trying to take a few more sights later.

Up and underway at 7AM we motor sailed, sometimes with good winds for fine sailing, headed for Nassau. We stayed about a mile behind Blue Goose and Cantagree so that we could dock one at a time at the Nassau Harbor Club. To enter harbor one must request permission from Harbor Control by calling them on Channel 16 and then switching to Channel 9. Joanne called and was told to switch to 9 which she did but then Harbor Control wouldn’t answer. We tried several times worrying that maybe something had gone wrong with our radio. Just as we started to use our handheld, Harbor Control told us we had to acknowledge their instruction to switch to Channel 9 before they would answer on 9. Well that little incident rattled us a little. Then one of the Green channel marks at the entrance looks too dark to be green ,so Joanne called it Red. A discussion then ensued about the color of the mark. We keep Reds to our right when returning from sea and had we kept this “Red” mark to starboard, we would have been on the rocks. We should have looked at the shape of the mark now that I think about it. Anyway, it was obviously not the way to go so there wasn’t any danger.

Next came the docking at the Nassau Harbor Club. Our slip looked to be too narrow so Joanne refused to proceed into the slip. So I took the wheel. We barely squeezed by the pole to which our port stern would be tied with a long line. We were told we would have a starboard tie and I wasn’t prepared with all the necessary dock lines out and ready. While I was retrieving more dock lines, three different guys including me were giving Joanne different directions at the same time. We looked frazzled as we tied up but all in all we walked away without a scratch so it was a GOOD docking. A good shower ashore and a dip in the pool followed.

We all had dinner at a nice Chinese restaurant a few blocks down the road and treated ourselves to ice cream at Diary Queen to end the day.

March 27 –

Tom, Maureen, Joanne and I caught a cab to the Atlantis Resort across the bridge on Paradise Island. We thought we could see their aquarium but found out that that would require a day pass @$39 each so we walked around the hotel, casino and marina and walked back across the bridge which afforded views east and west of Nassau Harbor.

We plan to head for the Exumas Tuesday, each boat possibly going their own way. This evening, John shared navigation and anchoring tips, great snorkeling spots and island highlights gained from his numerous trips to the Exumas.

Eagle’s Wings has performed very well on our trip so far.

Our major issue is refrigeration. Looks like the spillover fan just isn’t drawing enough cold air from the freezer to the refrigerator. Puuting a cabin fan the freezer helped at lot but the fan keeps quitting on me. Tomorrow, I will buy a computer fan at Radio Shack located across the street and wire it in the freezer. Of course we need to defrost the evaporator every four to seven days.

Our 300 watt inverter used to charge phones, toothbrushes, etc. died. Fortunately, I had a spare.

After my friend, Barry, showed me an ice maker that he bought for his Catalina 350, we bought one too. When we added water, the drain leaked water all over our cabin sole soaking our rug. I have the leak under control and we made ice!

The big surprise is that water in Nassau is too salty to drink. We may buy five gallon jugs of good water in the grocery store to fill our small tank as the next available good water is in Sampson Cay, way down the Exuma Island chain. Our larger forward water tank is still full of Florida water. There is a reason our friends have installed watermakers on their boats.

We will try updating our blog whenever we can.

March Pictures    Atlantis