The weather cooperated nicely with calm seas and just a little wind on our nose as we headed east. The first part of the trip was across the Grand Bahama Bank, an impossibly perfect blue expanse of water, 70 miles across, almost uniformly 11 to 12 feet deep. This uniform depth and crystal clear water creates the impression of sailing across a swimming pool with no edge in sight. We didn’t see much in the way of sea life, although a pod of whales (pilot or some other small species) passed us in the late afternoon. Around 4pm, the clouds rolled in and a steady drizzle/rain started to fall. A few boats passed us traveling west, including a very large sailing yacht that was kind enough to provide us via VHF with a state-of-the-art weather forecast for the rest of our trip.
The skies cleared and darkness fell as we left the bank and turned south east into the deep Northwest Channel. A beautiful crescent moon and a blanket of stars was our company for the remaining 60 miles to Nassau. Ava and Reed slept soundly below while Eric and Karrie traded 3 hr watches for container ships and other traffic – luckily there were none to worry about.
We made great time and arrived at the western Nassau Harbor entrance around 3am, a little too early to travel through the harbor so we slowed and circled a bit, until it started to get light in the east. Around 5:30am, we entered the harbor, just ahead of the 4 cruise ships we could see lining up in the distance to make their day stop in Nassau. The sunrise was beautiful!
We transited through Nassau Harbor, exiting the eastern side of the channel and headed around to the southeast side of NPI toward Palm Cay Marina. The marina came highly recommended by other cruisers we met in Bimini as a safe, inexpensive yet beautiful place to wait for guests and/or favorable weather to cross to the Exumas or other parts of the Bahamas. It definitely lived up to expectations!
With the boat safely docked, the kids enjoyed the swimming pool and beach cabanas while Karrie and Eric caught up on lost sleep from the overnight crossing. After some rest, we got the boat ready for the Breda Sandersons, arriving the next day!