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We are now in Nassau tied up in a slip at the Hurricane Hole Marina on Treasure Island. Our Banks crossing was a bit hairy. We started from Gun Cay at dawn and motored out into the narrow and shallow neck the opens up on the Bank from Gun Cay. Jeff led the way sounding for us but, as luck would have it, we went hard aground in 6 feet of water - about 6 inches too shallow. It was soft sand and low tide so we just needed to wait for the water to come back in. Jeff and Tessa and Michael and Gail went on for Chub Cay and we plowed and waited and plowed and waited. After about 2 hours we finally made it to deeper water and were on our way - we had missed the channel by less than 100 feet.
By now it was 9am and the wind started picking up. We spread all sail and were screaming along at 7.5 knots - pretty fast for us - across the 12-15 foot deep banks. It was a glorious day of sailing. On the other side of the Banks the much deeper Atlantic comes into it in a narrow neck of water called the Tongue of the Ocean. Our timing was such that we reached the Tongue of the Ocean just at max ebb so that we were going almost 9 knots for a while. This happened at sunset so we sailed on the next 15 miles to Chub Cay in the darkening twilight. The sky was dark and crowded with stars by the time we arrived at the cay but the anchorage was just off the beach and fairly easy to navigate past a couple of nasty, well marked reefs. Jeff and Michael flashed their lights and guided us in to the very gentle little anchorage. A perfect ending to a perfect sail across the Banks (minus the grounding!). We were quite proud to have crossed both the Gulf Stream and the Great Banks with very little problems.
The next morning we headed for Nassau in 20 knot winds. We sailed at about 7 knots across the Northwest Channel and had another great sail until we got about 5 miles from the Nassau harbor entrance, The current in the channel and the wind were working up some pretty lumpy waves - about 6-10 feet high and very short intervals. They were breaking over the boat at times and slewing us around. We surfed alot for a while in that area and then finally took down the sails and motored into the harbor. The megayacht we passed as we entered had a sailboat tender that was about twice as long as Susurra - see the picture to the left.
We tied up in the marina and walked over to the Atlantis Resort. What a disneyland! Swimming pools, waterfalls, aquariums, tidal basins, and tubing streams dot the place - oh, and there's a Casino too - and, oh, a yacht harbor with nothing smaller than 200 feet. Obscene money here.
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