Wednesday April 10: Green Turtle Marina

What we learned from our trip here in 2014: getting to the West End is NOT the same as getting to the part of the north Bahamas where you really want to be!! As you can see from the Google earth picture above, it's another 3 days to travel to be ALMOST to the Abacos.

Travel over mostly open water - although the depth varies from 7 feet to 20 feet. The kind of water I like - if we sink, simply climb up to the flybridge and wait :-)

Preparing to leave at 6:45 am.

So backing up to last Saturday morning as we prepared to head to the Hillsboro Inlet.

There is a bridge there that opens every 15 minutes - our goal was the 7:15 opening.

We were right on time and followed Love You More out of the inlet in sort of crazy water as the tide was also coming in as well as the waves. It was a beautiful start to what we expected to be an 11 hour trip.

The sun was just coming up - partially shining through the clouds.

Love You More leading the way.

This was our view the whole way across to the West End - just following Love You More. They have an autopilot and we don't so it made it way easier to just follow them. It's difficult to keep a very straight heading by watching the GPS.

Steve's 50" mahi-mahi

All was calm - seas about 2 feet (getting calmer the further  we went). Then about 20 miles out, I called Randy to let him know we were slowing down - Steve had a fish on the line!

Randy replied that so did Cindy!! Sounded like we had run across a school of Mahi-Mahi!!!

Cindy landed hers first and confirmed that it was a dolphin fish and we had seen Steve's jump so knew that it was also.

Cindy's 36" mahi-mahi

But it was a battle to get his in the boat. It didn't seem that big in the water but it was clear that a net was not going to bring this fish in.

I grabbed the gaff (carried it years now :-)). Fortunately Steve had seen the guys on the fishing boats in San Diego use a gaff and knew that he had to wait until the fish was parallel to the surface of the water to grab it with the gaff.

Randy and Cindy were able to get hers in with a big net!

And that was the most exciting thing that happened on the 11 hour trip on Saturday :-)

Of course there was then what do you do with such a large fish?

Cut the head off, cut the tail off and stick it in the cooler! The cooler is 21 1/2 inches long inside to give an idea of how huge the head of this fish was!!

Cleaning the rest of the way could wait until we made it to the West End.





The waters continued to calm until finally about 4:30 or so, so we could begin to make out the land of the West End.

Our yellow quarantine flag - which means we had not checked in with customs - was flying as we entered Bahamian waters.

We then continued on into the harbor, tied up and proceeded to the customs office. Fortunately they are willing to stay a bit later if they know boats are heading their way.




And then finally, it was time for a celebration of being fortunate to have a weather window that enabled us to plan and make the crossing.

Of course Randy and Cindy were prepared with a chilled bottle of champagne :-)

It was a long time not only planning the trip but a long time spent in Banana Bay making sure everything was prepared and ready for it.

There is a beautiful resort here including a great pool but no one had enough energy to even check it out :-) Steve did manage a walk around the grounds though to take a few pictures.

Sunrise at Great Sale Cay

There was no time to rest though! We also learned last time that when the weather is good, go. The plan was a leisure leave time of 9:30 to travel the 55 miles to the Great Sale Cay (pronounced 'key').

It was well protected for the east winds - enough so that we just tied the boats together for the night.

Good weather forecast again for Monday so we'd be off again around 8 am - next headed another 46 miles and 6 1/2 hours.

At anchor at Crab Cay

Crab Cay was our anchorage Monday night. We again tied the boats together but the shifting winds (from east to south) made us wonder why we did that! No issues - just a lot of wave slapping the hulls.

Beautiful water - Steve headed out to snorkel not long after the boats were settled :-)

We thought about spending another night here but once again the weather is king! Tuesday morning the weather prediction was for thunderstorms Wednesday night so we thought moving into a marina might be a good idea!

So we came in yesterday to Green Turtle Marina on Green Turtle Cay. It was a good decision as the wind picked up yesterday and the thunderstorms arrived today.

It's been a nice stay. Breakfast out this morning for the first time since we left Banana Bay.

And yesterday we rented a golf cart to take a ride into New Plymouth - the original settlement here. For some history of this cay, click here.


Fortunately we found an ice cream place that had sherbet (still not great for saturated fat but lower than ice cream :-)  ) right downtown.

Stopped at a couple of hardware stores, groceries stores, liquor stores - the usual :-)









Plus a stop on the way back at a beach for Steve to again try the snorkeling :-)

Ok but not great - tide was too low, sun not out and quite a bit of current!

Tomorrow we'll continue east while the prediction for low waves to cross "the Whale" holds.

Not sure where we'll head!