Crossing the Gulf Stream

Well the good news is…WE ARE IN THE BAHAMAS! The bad news is…wait, there is no bad news! We are in The Bahamas and nothing broke. I’m so used to taking the good with the bad while cruising, that even as we were tightening our dock lines at the marina, I was sure the engine would crap out. Or the dinghy would fly off the davits. Or our bilge pump would break.  But none of these things happened. The weather turned out to be just as nice or even milder than predicted. We made great time despite fighting the easterly winds and found ourselves in Bimini in just 9.5 hours. All in all, it was a rather boring day. When it comes to sailing, I’m 100% in favor of boring.

There’s a lot of hype around crossing the Gulf Stream and rightly so. If you are fortunate, like us, and have nice weather, then it may seem like a piece of cake. However, in the wrong weather conditions, the Gulf Stream can be terrifying. It is essentially a very very deep river within the Atlantic that is 45 miles wide and flowing at 2.5 knots. The current flows from south to north. When strong winds from the north are blowing against the current, I’m told the waves appear like roaring elephants on the sea. I hope I never see elephant waves on the ocean. You have to wait for the right weather window, but even then weather forecasts can be wrong. After reading horror stories, such as Sailing Chance’s first crossing that resulted in debilitating seasickness and 30 hours of Hell, we knew we needed to prepare accordingly.

We prepared the following items, before our crossing:

1. Jacklines: Jacklines are lines that run the length of the boat. Ours were tied to the stern and bow cleats. We then attached a tether line from our harnesses to the jacklines to prevent us from falling overboard.
2. Tethers: We have two different tethers. One that is a single line; the person at the helm wore this one. The other has a short line and a long line. When walking to the bow of the boat, the second line is secured, before detaching the first in order to maneuver around obstacles.
3. Harnesses/Lifejackets: We are using West Marine automatic inflating life jackets which double as a harness for the tethers.
4. Personal Locator Beacons: Our ACR beacons are attached to our lifejackets. In an emergency situation, we would set off the beacon and wait for emergency responders.
5. Whistles: We also had whistles on our lifejackets. If you have seen the movie Titanic, then you understand how this could be useful.
6. Ditch Bag: We ensured that our ditch bag was fully stocked with the necessities in case we needed to abandon the boat.
7. Spare Parts: We stocked up on essential spare parts prior to leaving. We certainly didn’t want to be stranded in the Gulf Stream without an engine, so we dug out all of our engine spare parts from our storage compartment and made them easily accessible.
8. Signaling Devices: We ensured that our flares and horns were not expired.
9. Float Plan: We emailed a float plan to Rob’s Dad that included our waypoints and timeline. If we failed to check in within a reasonable time, we had someone that would know where to start searching.
10. Food: It’s not easy to prepare meals while under way and nearly impossible in bad weather. I pre-made some PB&J sandwiches prior to our crossing and had snacks easily available.
11. Dramamine: I hate taking Dramamine. It makes me sleepy. But it’s better to be tired than sea sick. Rob and I both started taking Dramamine 12 hours before we left Angelfish Creek.

We pulled up our anchor at 3:00am Monday (Feb 29^th) morning and followed our tracks from the previous day out of Angelfish Creek. We were in the Atlantic, but the waves were very mild. All of the light pollution from Miami gave the sky a nice orange glow that helped us spot markers. We knew that crystal-clear protected waters, pure white sandy beaches, palm trees, and an ocean full of eatin’ fish awaited us on the other side, we just needed to get through the day.

By the time the sun was rising, the adrenaline from our departure had subsided and the Dramamine had kicked in. Not even 3 hours into our crossing I was ready for a nap. Things were so calm, so the pups and I got some much needed rest, while Rob manned the autopilot. The remainder of the 9 and half hours were more or less the same…boring. We lost sight of Miami after about 4 hours and didn’t see land again until we were close to Bimini. We didn’t see any other boats crossing that day. It was just us and the blue, deep waters. Our only excitement was spotting Man-of-War jelly fish.

But boring is good and after 9.5 hours we arrived in Bimini. Amazingly, the water depth drastically changed from 2,000 feet to 20 feet about a mile from shore. The deep blue sea turned into exotic turquoise crystal clear water. We had arrived.

Prior to pulling into Brown’s Marina, we raised The Bahamas curtesy flag and our yellow quarantine flag. The yellow flag is raised until we clear customs. Captain Rob checked us in while the pups and I were confined to the boat. We had zero problems with importing the pups. We had all of the required paperwork and permits, but technically our USDA Health Certificate should have been signed within 48 hours before our arrival. Ours was signed Feb 8^th (almost a month before). Turns out that is not a hard rule for dogs arriving via sailboat.

We spent the next 2 nights at Brown’s Marina in Bimini before sailing over to Chub Cay and then to Nassau. We probably won’t be spending much time in the Bahamas this year, so we want to explore the Exumas as soon as possible.

We crossed the Great Bahamas Banks on the way to Chub Cay. It’s essentially an ocean dessert. We saw absolutely nothing except beautiful clean turquoise water. The water was so clear that it appeared only a few feet deep when in reality it was more like 20 feet. Occasionally we’d see some star fish and grass on the bottom, but other than that it was just a whole lot of sand.

On our sail to Nassau, we caught not one, not two, but THREE dolphinfish (mahi mahi). We have been fishing for weeks and haven’t even had a nibble. Then in a matter of two hours we caught 3 mahi mahi. The first one was pretty small so we decided to target a second fish and had two lines out. We haven’t invested in trolling rods, so we were just using hand reels. While we were in the mist of addressing our second fish, the third one bit before we could pull in the line. We feel pretty glutinous about taking three fish from the sea in one day, but we will be sure to share our bounty and make sure it doesn’t go to waste. Funny enough, our chubby pup (Baxter) doesn’t care for fish. Seriously, this dog will eat ANYTHING, but turns his nose up at fresh fish. Boy is he missing out. Maybe we will get sick of mahi mahi, but right now we are enjoying it blackened, breaded, baked, and in tacos.

Next stop: Exumas.