Passage to Black Sound, Green Turtle Cay

Today we had another 60 miles to go from Great Sale to Green Turtle Cay. This would be our final long voyage of the trip. One very frustrating experience was that our AutoPilot failed for most of the morning. We had to hand-steer in 20-25 knot winds which was tiring. Brian was on the satellite phone with Tech Support at Simrad trying to get some assistance; we watched the clock as he was on hold for 18 minutes at $1.00 per minute charges on this phone! In the end, his troubleshooting skills paid off and he solved the problem by tightening a pivotal screw in the assembly that was manufactured by the company and sent to us intact. How maddening! We were so relieved to have it working again, so we could take a break from the intensity required at the helm in these conditions.

Contrary to the weather predictions, the wind really died down throughout the afternoon. Here are some photos of this trip once things were calmer. The first photo shows the different colors of the water. You can see the foreground of this first picture is darker (deeper), and the water further away is the brilliant aquamarine (more shallow). If you are interested, Google “reading the waters in the Bahamas with eyeball navigation”… there is a lot to learn! We rely less on our GPS and more on our eyes because we draw 6 feet and have to be careful not to run into coral reefs or rocks. Polarized sunglasses are essential. On this bank, as far as I could see to the horizon is only 20 feet at its deepest. On the Gulf Stream, in contrast, (hold your breath, Dad!) we sailed in 2,500 feet of water!

Here are some more photos of the trip today. I guess my senses were heightened by the fresh air and bright colors and sunshine – I took a lot of close-up shots around the boat because suddenly everything looked more interesting.  We still wore layers: it was 65 degrees today, cold weather by Bahamian standards!








We arrived in Black Sound at Green Turtle Cay at around 4:00pm today. We decided to pick up one of the 2 remaining moorings so that we didn’t have to worry about anchoring in a tight spot. More to come!