The forecast for Sunday was for a pretty decent crossing opportunity. 2 to 3 foot seas and winds under 10 knots. Also, if we didn't cross on Sunday, there would not be another opportunity for nearly a week due to high winds and seas. So, we pushed the guys cleaning the boat to be done by noon on Saturday & we took off for an anchorage close to the open ocean to give us a quick exit.Our anchorage turned out to be quite lovely & quiet. Yeahhh.
Though we wanted to get an early start, our forecast recommended waiting a little in order to let the last of the high winds die down so we postponed our Sunday morning departure from 4:00 am to 7:00 am.In this picture, you can see a whole line of boats who were also heading out at that time.
We traveled almost 90 miles this day and arrived at our destination at 5:15. Though the forecast said 2 to 3 foot seas and winds under 10 knots, it turned out to be more like 4 to 5 foot seas and winds over 15 knots.PLUS, the waves were on the nose and frequent.
Instead of punching through them, we "hobby-horsed" all day - constantly! Neither of us felt very good all day long. In fact, the only thing we had to eat were pretzels and ginger ale. Ugghhh. Though Carol fared OK, Jim left a generous portion of pretzel chum for the fish to enjoy.
It was so uncomfortable, we didn't even fish or read or pretty much anything but watch the clock and the waves.
Our destination was Bradford Marine, a boatyard in Freeport where we are considering leaving Samba through the hurricane season next year. It is buried deeply in a very large cruise ship and container port. Imagine our surprise when we contacted the port manager about 2 miles out who told us we had better hurry if we wanted to get in before a large cruise ship left. We kicked into high gear and hurried into the entrance.
The cruise ship was already starting to move as we came in so we ducked under its bow just as it was beginning its turn to leave. Wow!
Once we got past the cruise ship, the port looked more like Fort Lauderdale than the Bahamas!
Since it was after hours on a Sunday, only the security guard was on duty at Bradford. He wouldn't answer the phone or the radio so we had to try our best to figure out where to go. The only instructions were to find the 4th canal in the port and turn right. Once in the canal, we went nearly a mile before finding a couple of mega-yachts that signaled Bradford's area.
The view out the back of the boat wasn't much. We tied up right in front of a pilot boat. You can see one of the many cruise ships in the background.
As soon as we tied up, the security guard gave us a large pile of papers to fill out and immediately called the Bahamas Customs and Immigration officers to check us in.
Though nice, the sheaf of forms is pretty daunting. People who complain about US border control have never tried to enter a foreign country from the water. It's a big deal and it's quite expensive. If you don't abide by their rules, exactly, or if you try to sneak in without checking in, guess what? You're lucky if you only get fined a few thousand dollars. They are empowered to seize your vessel if they want.
We aren't sure what the future holds for us as we have an engine starting battery that died when we tried to leave this morning! Oh well, we'll figure that out tomorrow.
