Our journey here was rather drawn-out at times with long days of motoring in the ICW and at sea, cold rain, too many drawbridges to count, and once or twice I for one felt like going home. Now, however, I'm glad we persevered. We are in the Bahamas! Yes, I can feel your relief from here. Finally you are saying, they will stop whining.
We immigrated into the Bahamas in Grand Bahamas Island at a "yacht club". It is actually a pretty nice place, although really more a marina than a yacht club. The people are nice, the weather is warm (79 and sunny), and we even got to watch the Super Bowl in a bar/restaurant within walking distance (about a mile each way). It was perhaps the most boring Super Bowl ever, but the food was good, the beer was cheap and I got a free t-shirt!
Our crossing from Fort Pierce, FL to here was tiring and we both felt the effects of mal de mer at times. Neither of us "wasted" a meal, but we sure did not feel good at all for a bit. We spent over half the trip in the Gulf Stream with north east winds, fighting the north flowing current of the stream which can cause steep waves and a lot of churn. That was not fun, although not as bad as I feared in those conditions. The current flows at about 4 knots in some places and at times we had to steer about 30 degrees further south than our desired course.
As we approached the Bahamas in the dark, the ocean was filled with large cruise ships, some commercial freighters and a smattering of sail and power boats. We managed to keep clear of the other boats and cruise ships. The cruise ships are easy to see since they keep every light in the ship on at night. We were on the radio with many of the boats to make sure we knew their course and they had seen us. All were polite and accommodating. To top off our evening's challenges, we had several downpours also (not that it really matters since you can't see anything in the dark anyway).
Once we got into a marina, we filled out reams of paperwork and met with Customs and Immigration people to get cleared in. Then we had a pancake breakfast, took three hour naps and showered to feel human again!
Today, Monday 2/4, is a beautiful day and we are going to take it easy and try and get a Sim card that works here so we can use our phones to make calls and access the internet (we have wifi in marina).
Pictures below include our sunset while in the ocean and the rainbow that greeted us as we came into the Bahamas the next morning.
