When your friends need a hand getting their 70 foot motor yacht down the east…
Chub Cay To Nassau
From: The Captain –
Conditions: Sun and clouds. Winds from the south-southeast 10-15mph, seas 2-4′ on the nose diminishing to 2-3’s about halfway through.
Distance traveled: 38.7 nautical miles
Time underway: 3 hours 3 minutes
Average Speed: 12.6 knots
Max Speed: 18.4 knots
After eight full days at Chub Cay we were eager to get underway for our Exumas adventure. The strong winds that had kept us in place finally shifted direction and laid down a bit.
No one will accuse us of not making the most of our time while “stuck” at Chub Cay…
As we’ve written about before, one of the great joys of boating is the good people you meet along the way – people with whom you might never have crossed paths were it not for the shared passion of being on the water and a sense of adventure. At Chub we were fortunate to spend time with more folks with whom we hope to remain connected. Thank you to the gangs from Escapist, Yorel and Catalyst – how luck are we all?!
But despite all the fun it was time to go and we studied the weather several times each day looking for our window to move on. We originally thought we wouldn’t be able to leave any sooner than Monday, ten days after arriving, but when we awoke on Sunday we looked at our sources and decided that there was a window opening through which we should jump. So we went into departure mode with the idea of leaving just before midday to plan around the abating winds through the afternoon. We checked out, stopped at the fuel dock to top off the tanks and left Chub Cay after a grand stay, pointing OLOH’s bow towards Nassau with 15 mph winds and a three foot sea on our nose. So the ride was a bit wet but much easier to handle with stabilizers that we still couldn’t fully trust and overall completely manageable as we traversed the waters of the Atlantic known as the Tongue Of The Ocean. At times we were in depths of around 6,000 feet! While it wasn’t a big distance to travel, it is a body of water (like them all) which is to be respected.
One unexpected moment came in the middle of our crossing when we were suddenly hailed by the sailing vessel Caribbean Soul II which was a mile or so off our port side heading in the opposite direction. It turns out that we had met its owner Dennis while we were at Port Royal Landing Marina in Beaufort, SC back in December. Dennis had been in touch with our dear friend Michele, the Dockmaster at Port Royal who told him to keep an eye out for OLOH down in The Bahamas. More serendipity and we proceeded to have a nice chat on the VHF and got some more great suggestions on places to go and good intel about the conditions we were heading into. Great to see you Dennis!
When we were closing in on Nassau Harbor we were required to hail Nassau Harbor Control to ask permission to enter the harbor…
With permission granted we proceeded another two miles to Bay Street Marina which had high marks on Active Captain for a place to stay in Nassau if you weren’t interested in Atlantis (we weren’t). When we called prior to our departure from Chub, Kim was very accommodating and found us a slip. When we hailed on our approach (VHF 08) they were spot-on with their instructions for approaching our slip which is always appreciated in unfamiliar marinas. Once tied up we celebrated another milestone in our adventure with an arrival cocktail, walked the Jasper and checked in to the marina where they were thrilled to meet our four legged family member and fill us in on their amenities and everything we needed to know. Bay Street has very nice fixed docks, a small pool and gym and is clean and secure. There are two restaurants on site – the casual Green Parrot Bar and Grill and the more formal Luciano’s Italian restaurant.
And now we watch the weather and wait for one more crossing before we turn yet another page in The Adventures Of OLOH!
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