Scott here. December 12, 2023, we traveled from Staniel Cay to Great Exuma, specifically the Marina at Emerald Bay. We have always planned to stay at this marina for at least two weeks. Since we are here early it may be longer.

Side note: did you hear about the Fyre Festival in the Bahamas from 2017? That was suppose to take place adjacent to the marina. Here is a link if you want to read about it.

This post is coming out late. Sorry about that.  We have been enjoying life in the Bahamas. I will put out a separate post about what we have been doing as it relates to boat life and repairs, with a little human interest thrown in to keep you waiting for Rita’s post! She is working on her post now, so I better publish this one quick!! Oh wait, she said she is only done with the words. Now she has to add her emojis, then photos, then captions. I have time!!

But first, let’s check to see how the planning went!

Plan v ACTUAL
Start at: 7:00 am ACTUAL 7:50 am
End at: 1:15 pm ACTUAL 2:11 pm
Total Time: 6:15 hours ACTUAL 6:27 hours
Distance: 54.2 miles ACTUAL 54.6 miles
Avg. speed: 8.4 mph
Max speed: 12 mph

The weather was about how I expected it to be. But, first let’s talk about the cut. In the Bahamas a cut is where you cut through the islands to go to a different body of water. We had to cut from the Great Bahama Bank to the Exuma Sound. All of my reading talked about trying to go through most cuts at slack tide, especially if the wind and waves are going in different directions. Before you look it up, here is the definition we found for slack tide.

“Slack tide is a phenomenon that occurs twice a day during the tidal cycle. It is a period of approximately 30 minutes when the tide is neither incoming nor outgoing, and the water is relatively still.” (What is Slack Tide? – American Oceans)

Our original route had us going south a couple of hours before cutting through to Exuma Sound. High tide will be at 7:03 am., and that would mean we would have to leave before 5:00 a.m. to make the cut at slack tide. It just so happens that “Big Rock Cut” is just 5 minutes north of the marina. It looks pretty big. A delivery captain leaving the same day as us plans on using that cut as well. He isn’t a buddy boat since they travel at 20 mph. 

We were up, walked the dog and ready to leave at 6:30 am. Problem being this marina has two long docks and we are on the inside of the dock. On the other side in front of us is a mega yacht and right in front of us is their 25′ tender and another yacht in front of that. We can’t get out. Around 8:00 am I saw one of the deck hands for the mega yacht and asked if he could move their tender. He asked when we planned on leaving and I told him an hour ago. He felt bad and moved it right away.

The delivery captain helped throw our lines, and I asked him to keep watch on the swim platform (he was the yacht in front of the tender in front of us) while Rita kept watch on the starboard side making sure I didn’t run into the mega yacht. All went well. As Rita was getting the fenders and lines ready I was slowly (idle speed) moving to the cut. As I saw the cut and the water I stopped as long as possible for Rita to finish up and get inside. No way was I going to keep her outside as we went through. Waves were going one way, swell was going the other way, and it looked a little dicey.

Once she was inside we slowly moved forward then I had to give her a little more power to be able to keep control. I didn’t want to get in front of a swell or wave and let it push me where it wanted me to go. Rocks on both sides and shallow water on the starboard side. I want to go where I want to go!!

You can see the channel. It is plenty deep, 3-7 meters. The “x” in the cut on each side I believe is shallow water. I stay away from it! We missed slack tide by 30-60 minutes. We buried the anchor at one point heading out. It just throws a lot of water up at us and it isn’t the first time it has happened, but it is exhilarating every time!!

We stayed fairly close to land, maybe 1-1.5 miles out. Each time we went by a cut I needed to hand steer and turn us into the waves as the waves seemed to intensify even that far away. Below is a good example. As we went past Adderly Cut you can see our track (the green line) with a turn into the waves then heading back in our general direction we want to go.

Overall, the weather was as we expected. If we didn’t have our crazy schedule we would not have left, but it all worked out, and from here on, we have no schedule. Actually, we would probably be stuck in the Nassau area if it wasn’t for wanting to be here for Christmas with our family. Schedules and boating could be another topic on its own.

Over the next week I need to figure out a fix or source a replacement for our dinghy, rebuild or figure out what went wrong with our water pump from when we were in Stuart and figure out a pump-out situation. That is a long story and maybe a blog on its own.

Until next time….