Passages to West End, Grand Bahama

Passages to West End, Grand Bahama

Monday 24th to Friday 25th April, 2025

We have been working our way northwards in single day hops, with the intention of staging out of West End, Grand Bahama for our long passage back to Florida. The sail from Shroud Cay, Exumas over to Nassau crosses the Yellow Bank - a shallow area where “Visual Piloting Rules” apply and you need to be on the lookout for coral heads. The sail itself was fast and furious, with 15+ knots of wind on the beam. As we approached the Yellow Bank we were somewhat relieved that, despite heavy chop, we could actually see the sandy bottom and that the isolated coral heads stood out a mile. We anchored on the south side of Rose Island, 2 or 3 miles east of Nassau. It turned out to be a pretty miserable, rolly anchorage under the conditions. 

The following Day, Tuesday, we were up and on our way before 7am. We had a good sail up to the Berry Islands, making full use of our “code zero” sail. This is what Rod calls our “storm gennaker” … it’s meant for reaching in fairly light winds, but its quite we’ll built and not the lightest fabric. Nonetheless, we have become more familiar and comfortable using it, and a broad reach in 12-14 knots we were flying along. We navigated around the northern tip of the Berry Islands and large areas of shallow water, and headed into Bullock’s Harbor. We had covered 72 miles in just over 11 hours, half of which we sailed and half we motor sailed because the winds were too light to maintain adequate speed. The Bullock’s Harbor anchorage is wide open to the west, but in the north easterly winds we were experiencing it was completely flat. We spent a couple of nights here and spend the day visiting the small community on shore, getting a few provisions, dumping our trash, and preparing for the even longer on Thursday. We needed to make an early start!

Mike

When the alarm went off at 3:45 am, I felt less than delighted.  Even worse it seemed like my brain was scrambled, getting dressed was a struggle! We hoped to be away by 4 am.  

Somehow, I forgot that it would be chilly at 4 am, many additional trips below for warmer gear were needed.  We put up the sail while still at anchor.  By 4:15 am we were underway.  We were able to follow our track from Tuesday, back across the shallow areas to somewhat deeper water.  Moving along in the dark has an unsettling impact on me.  Soon we were out in Northwest Providence channel.  What we had forgotten was that this stretch of water is quite busy.  We saw 3 cruise ships and two tankers before it got light.   

The journey to West End was about 85 miles.  Although the marina was open until 8 pm, we wanted to arrive in before sunset.  Anchoring in the dark is one thing, docking into a slip in the dark seems an entirely different proposition.  The result was that we felt time pressure for the entire passage.  When the wind speed dropped in the morning we rolled up the genoa and hoisted the gennaker.  We continued in this fashion until we came close to Lucaya/Freeport.  In this area,  the wind diminished to about 5 knots.  We took down the gennaker and started the engine.  After about an hour, the wind filled in robustly from the north east and we were able to sail the last two hours to our waypoint off the marina.  Once we knew it was a starboard tie up, we got dock lines and fenders ready. Even though we had been to this marina once before (Jan 2013), neither one of us could remember a thing about the layout.  Seeing the dock master waving at us from the slip was a big help.  Mike executed the docking maneuver fantastically.  It’s SO much easier with people on the dock to help with the lines.  It was a great relief to have the boat tied up in plenty of time before dark.  An early night was on the cards for me.  Mike stayed up late following the first day of the NFL draft.  I don’t know how he could manage staying awake.

Today is Friday, preparations are underway for an even bigger passage.  We washed the boat down with fresh water, reducing the appearance of Cotinga as salt pan.  Water tank and water jerries were refilled.  Mike pulled the knot meter and cleaned the paddle wheel.  We changed the engine over to run off the main diesel tank. Mike prepared food for the passage, while I did laundry. We still need to make coffee, download some audio books, get out some warm clothes.  Generally it’s about being able to easily get to things like medications and toothbrushes.  Our hope is to get to Fernadina Beach, some 290 nautical miles away.  Sadly the winds are forecast to be quite light, so it might be mostly motoring.  As for how long it takes, that depends on how fast we can travel.  If we are making 6 kts through the water it will be about 40 hours!  The Gulf Stream adds a lot to the speed over the ground (+3.5 knots). We will try to get an early start—probably 6 am.  Hopefully, it will all go smoothly. 

Gloria

reminder ... you can view our track at :

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Cotinga/

Leaving the Nassau area on Tuesday morning

Flying the 'Code 0' foresail 

The 'Code 0' sail is contained in a 'sock' and raised using the spinnaker halyard. Once everything is set up the sock is pulled up to the top using the blue lines that are prominent in this picture. When you want to take down the sail, you pull the sock down over the sail and wrestle the resulting sausage to the deck. All good fun on the bouncy foredeck! 

Stirrup Island on the north of the Berry Islands is owned by a cruise line company (presumably "XXXX of the Seas"). They seem to park their boats here and then perhaps motor over and pick up passengers from Nassau

We passed 'Disney Fantasy' on our way to West End