West End – here we come (again)!

We woke at 5 AM to check the engines and empty the sea strainers (wire baskets that catch debris before the water gets pushed into the engines to cool them).  By “we” I mean Dan.  I took Sydney for a potty walk, secured the lose items in the boat, and prepared the interior/exterior for the crossing – you know, 1^st Mate problems….LOL. 

We left the dock at 6 AM thinking that the weather was going to progressively get worse.  The trip started with thunderheads in our path, as the sun tried to peak up through some clouds a bit north of us (wasn’t a successful sunrise).   

The 1^st hour of our trip was rough (stabilizers were working extra hard) and we questioned if we wanted to endure the pounding for 7 hours.  We entered the gulf stream about 8 miles off the coast (30-50 mile wide section of the Atlantic that runs south to north with the current flowing 3-4 knots) which is known to be treacherous at times depending on swell height, wind speed, and wind direction (i.e. the reason for the stabilizers back in 2013). The gulf stream and remainder of the trip was surprisingly calm, which is the opposite of what we have experienced in the past, likely because the wind and swells were going in the same direction.  We decided to cross to Bahamas at our slow speed (9-10 knots) which gave us an opportunity to put out a couple trolling lines to see if we could catch some Tuna or Mahi Mahi.  Summer Chaser is not a fishing boat, but, with some Dan ingenuity, we pretended.

A Mahi Mahi did hit a line within about 30 minutes, but I lost it when it was about 10 feet from the boat.  Something else hit as we were bringing the lines in for the day.  The disappointment of having chicken for dinner set in!!  We arrived to the marina in West End (Old Bahamas Bay) about 2 PM, settled into our slip, Dan passed us through immigration/customs and I started washing the boat after 3 days of salty travel (First Mate duties, again).  It was nice to finally sit down and relax after a long 3 full days of travel knowing that we were staying for a couple nights. 

The highlight of the day was getting scorched conch (conch salad with habaneros) from a vendor next to immigration (appetizer) and some cinnamon raisin bread (dessert) from a local woman.  Both delicious!