Chris Parker is the weather guru for cruisers, and most everyone wakes up to catch his SSB radio broadcast at 6:30 in the morning, every day except Sunday. There have been a number of cold fronts passing through, but he sees a ‘window’ to make the passage to Florida in the next few days. If we do not capitalize on it, it will be at least a week before there is another opportunity.
With this in mind, we are off to Highbourne Cay on Wednesday and then to West Bay on New Providence Island on Thursday. The forecast still looks good, so early Friday morning it is off to Lake Worth in Florida.
The waves in the Tongue of the Ocean have been quite large over the past week, but have been subsiding in the last couple of days. Thus it was with just a little trepidation that we stuck our noses out there at first light in the morning.
We have been sailing together with Cipango for the last couple of weeks, and this picture shows them just a little off our port side. We were simultaneously in the trough of waves and all we could see were their sails.The wind was fresh and true all day and we had one of the best sails we have ever had. From the Tongue of the Ocean we passed through the Northwest Channel onto the Banks, which were never more than 12 to 20 feet deep.
At about midnight we passed by an outcropping known as Hens and Chickens and set our sights on Florida. It is always a little unnerving to be sailing at night. The funny thing is, you can’t see all that much. The stars, however, were spectacular, and when you looked down at the wake it appeared to be full of little fireflies called bioluminescence.
It was a beautiful night and an uneventful crossing. As the sun came up in the morning the wind changed slightly and we were able to sail the last four hours to Lake Worth. We travelled for 28.5 hours and in that time covered 174.7 nautical miles.Is it any wonder that afternoon burgers and beers at the Tiki Hut were a real treat?
