Approaching Departure, Post 25-15
- Jimmy Lee
- Apr 13
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 18
Fishers Bay, Great Guana Cay
Green turtle Club Resort and Marina, Green Turtle Cay
Tom Johnson Sound, Great Sale Cay
Saturday, April 5 through Friday, April 11, 2025
68 nautical miles (78 statute miles)
This week was all about positioning the boat in a location to leave the Bahamas (since our 90 days is almost up) and dodging some weather.
Fishers Bay, Great Guana Cay
We spent Saturday exploring Great Guana Cay and eating lunch at Nippers. Nippers was a pretty cool spot with two pools and a splendid view of the Atlantic Ocean. It turns out the managers are about to leave the Abacos and move to Tallahassee! Small world.
We ended the day on the boat getting ready to cross over to Green Turtle Cay via the Whale Cut on Sunday morning.
Whale Cut (AKA “The Whale”)
The Whale Cut is a spot in the Abacos that you must go through (if you draft more than 5’) if you want to proceed into the northern portion of the Abacos. It’s a channel/cut where you must leave the protection of the Sea of Abaco, go out into the Atlantic Ocean and then back into the Sea of Abaco. The actual cut route is only a few miles long, but it must be respected due to it being impassable and extremely dangerous in some conditions.
A little synopsis of the Whale (sherrygaley.com):
“The Whale Cay Passage is infamous for the danger it can present to boaters about 20% of the time. It has caused more lives and vessels lost than all other areas in the Bahamas combined. You have to treat it with great respect.
You have to watch the weather and tides carefully and listen to reports of others who are going through in order to make an informed decision about whether to pass through on any particular day.
Over time, 20 mph winds from the North, Northeast or East can produce swells that make the Whale dangerous. Once the winds have been blowing for a day or two from any of those directions and then abate, it can still take a day or so for the wave action to settle. This is called a “rage.” From a distance, using binoculars, a rage looks like elephants dancing on the horizon. A rage is obviously not a good time to cross the Whale.”
I fret a lot over passages and this one was no exception. A consistent, strong, long term, northeast wind will make this a very dangerous passage, but we had had several days of moderate southeast wind, so I was thinking we would be fine.
We weighed anchor at 9 a.m. on Monday and started motoring toward The Whale. The goal was to enter the 3-mile passage (out of the Loggerhead Channel and through the Whale Cut) around 10 a.m. to coincide with low-slack tide (slack tide is where the tide is at its lowest or highest and the current is near zero). As we approached the cut, we saw many other boats ahead of us that went through and the sea state looked very benign, so we decided to push on. If we happened to be approaching the channel and we saw a large expanse of white caps we were prepared to turn tail and go back to where we started and wait for another day.
We exited from the Sea of Abaco into the Atlantic with some mildly rolling seas and then after 30 minutes of motoring we entered back into the Sea of Abaco on the other side of Whale Cay. It was anti-climatic, but in a good way.
Green Turtle Cay
After The Whale we cut off the motor to sail the last 7 miles to Green Turtle Cay as we waited for the tide to rise enough for us to enter the channel that goes to Green Turtle Club Marina. We decided to stay at a marina for a few days in expectations of some weather and to do last minute preparations for our trip back to the States as this would be our last location where we can provision.
On Monday we dinghied across the harbor and explored the town of New Plymouth where we did some grocery shopping and beach walking at Gillam Bay. Since the wind was building on Tuesday, we decided to forgo the dinghy and rented a golf cart for the day to explore more of the island and to meet up for lunch with our buddy boat Alboe (A Little Bit of Everything). We got back to the boat early since the rain was coming and we talked to a lot of boaters coming into the marina to wait out the storm. It happens this small marina had three Caliber sailboats arriving on Tuesday and we spoke to all of them.
Wednesday was a down day due to rain and we spent most of the day on the boat. The rain ended after lunch, so we went for a walk and then went to happy hour with the other three Calibers (Elizabeth Ann, Shanti & October Wind) and Alboe.
Thursday I was in planning mode for our upcoming departure to the States. I use several weather apps (Windy, BuoyData, Fast Seas, Marine Data Center, etc.) that look at various models and I make a judgement on when we should leave. The tentative plan is to move the boat to Great Sale Cay on Friday (50 nautical miles to the West) as our departure point for the U.S. Our plans are to wait there for a weather window to jump into the Gulf Stream and hopefully take a beeline to Brunswick, Georgia. The trip should take about 48 hours with the help of the Gulf Stream. Having said that, we have four bailout points along our route. From closest to farthest we have: Ft. Pierce, Port Canaveral, St. Augustine, and Cumberland Island. Right now, it looks like a Sunday or a Monday departure but since that is four days away it can change significantly. One of the important things that gets missed is checking the sea state. You might have great wind and no rain but if there are eight-foot steep seas created by a system 1,000 miles away, you might not want to leave port. We will see.
Great Sale Cay
On Friday we left the dock at sunrise because we needed to leave on a high tide to get out of the shallow marine area. We then proceeded to motor in very little wind for about 50 nautical miles to the west to stage for a departure from the Bahamas on Sunday. Other than the chartplotter freezing up towards the end of the day, the motor-sail was uneventful, and we tucked on the east side of Great Sale Cay since we are expecting some northwesterly winds on Saturday. It was a relaxing evening as we were trying to eat through all our Bahama bought vegetables. We cannot bring them into the States so we either need to eat them or toss them overboard when we are out to sea.
Photos are all in one big Abaco folder. New pictures start on April 5.
Post #25-15 | Links to the previous and next blog posts can be found below.
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