Under sail, crossing the Gulf Stream toward the Bahamas. Our passage was fast and fun. Once again, we ignored the advice of the local weather guru, and took our our council. We exited Port Everglades at about 4PM in a building Northwesterly wind, pointed the boat east, and took off. The wind varied from 9 knots to nearly 20. The ride was very comfortable, and Harmonie strutted her stuff making well over 8 knots through the water most of the way.

We arrived on the south coast of Grand Bahama Island quickly enough that we hove to, backtracking a bit, waiting for sunrise, before entering the channel. We tied up to the Grand Bahama Yacht Club to complete the check-in formalities with Customs and Immigration. The check in process went smoothly, as it always has for us.

By 11:00 we were tied up to Scarborough Docks where we met the crew on Harmonie’s sistership Idun to help her crew on a couple quick projects and later, dinner.

The local bay is either “Flamingo Bay” or “Bell Channel Bay” depending on which chart you look at. Getting in through a well marked channel is not hard, but the channel is not deep. The forecast height of tide at Freeport Harbor was 0.7 feet as we approached about 45 minutes before low tide. We saw a lot of depth readings of 7 feet. Since our keel is 6’6″ that’s pretty close, but you get used to it in these islands We did touch (gently) in one sandy spot just inside the entrance. You have not visited the Bahamas until your keel touches sand!

We had thought we would turn around and be out of here today, but, but we decided to hand for a few days and let the easterly trade winds moderate a bit for our next jump over to Eleuthera.