Captain’s Log – Wed 5/7/25
Anchor up at 6:10am, we departed for the 75nm crossing of the Bahama Bank to South Riding Rock. We motor sailed through mid afternoon for maximum speed when the wind completely died leaving us only motoring the rest of the afternoon. We dropped anchor at 7:15pm off of Riding Rock, which offers a little better protection than South Riding Rock. And reported better holding. All in that was about 78nm in 13 hours for an average of about 6kts. We were actually moving faster than that most of the time, it’s the putting in and out of anchorages that skews the average. That’s the second longest passage in a single day Alicia and I have done together, only the overnight to the Dry Tortugas being longer a couple years ago. We try to avoid marathon passages when possible as it can wear you out and take some of the fun out of it. And it’s supposed to be fun, that’s kinda the whole point right?
The remainder of the Northwest Passage was benign in the morning and overall a pleasant day on the bank. If conditions would have permitted we would have sailed taking our time, stopping halfway to anchor for the evening but it was forecast to get rolly overnight with the wind picking back up during the night. And it did, glad to behind Riding Rock. It was still pretty darn rolly there. Neither of us slept great. It’s a bit nerve wracking anchoring so close to giant rocks and then start rolling around.
Sadly, tomorrow we head back to the Keys. We have thoroughly enjoyed our stay in the Bahamas. 🇧🇸 Must come back. It will be another pretty long day. The crossing is about 60nm. A little less than today. If it’s calm enough we might try to stay out on the reef tomorrow night. We’ll see. Otherwise we’ll have an another couple hours to go find an anchorage inside the reef.
✌️❤️⛵️
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