Friday, February 28, 2020

Chub Cay then Crossing the Bank

Chub Cay Resort and Marina was very nice. The grounds were well groomed, the staff was professional and the floating docks were in great shape. There was a surprising lack of boats and people. The marina was about 1/4 full of fishing boats and we barely saw any other guests. They have a reputation for being pricey but I don’t think that is the problem. You can tell by the decor that they cater to the big sport fishing boats and the word on the docks is that it isn’t shaping up to be a good year for fishing. Mike also noticed that the big-fish awards photos in the lobby weren’t from any recent years.

There were plenty of wild chickens and roosters so it wasn’t a problem waking up at dawn to get a start on our big run across the Bank.

The forecast predicted that we’d have a nice but long sail across the Great Bahama Bank but it also predicted a rough night out on anchor on the other side. We weighed that against Saturday’s sailing forecast which looked worse. Sunday looked calm but didn’t leave any wiggle room for getting ready to cross back to the states on Monday. We decided to go today (Friday) because getting in position for Monday’s cross back was key. We could certainly handle one bumpy night.

Everybody already knows that the weathermen are wrong sometimes. This was one of those days. The sailing was bad. It was chilly! The waves were choppy and splashing high over the front of the boat. You would have thought it was raining. The wind was stronger than predicted and out of the West (our desired path) most of the day. It was so strong we couldn’t just motor into it. We had to motor/sail way off our planned line then tack back. Eventually, we got the predicted wind direction so we adjusted our course and made it to our anchorage after sunset but just before it got dark. Not an ideal day but nothing a hot shower, a glass of wine and dark chocolate couldn’t fix. Let’s hope the overnight weather isn’t worse than predicted.



No comments:

Post a Comment