By Capt. Rod and Susie Stebbins
Part One
Oh Those Great Bahamas... Our thirty six foot Sea Ray, SANCHO, has had her engines tuned to a song.Susie has made her lists and checked them at least ten times. On the wayto the boat we buy all the supplies we will need for three weeks. Susie cooks everything she can before we leave the house so she can spend more time outside in the sun. We have also learned that precooked food lasts longer on ice than fresh food. The rest of our food is canned. Our drinks are also canned. SANCHO has an apartment type Frig/Freezer and a small ice maker that doubles as a freezer for more of those special things that must be kept frozen (diet TV dinners for the Captain).
We have spent most of the afternoon trying to find hiding places aboard SANCHO for the mounds of supplies. By half past six we are ready to make two pit stops, the head for us and the gas dock for SANCHO. By nine in the evening we were sipping relaxation at a quiet anchorage just outside our marina for the night. The next morning will find us underway with fine weather before us. The excitement is as high as the misty clouds in the night sky just visible in the moonlight.
At four twenty in the morning Susie is up and getting the coffee ready. Quickly we stow the bedding and at five o'clock we are underway, inching our way past Egmont Key on a 270 degree heading for the Gulf of Mexico. The trip down the coast to Fort Myers is always uneventful except for Florida's usual colorful sunrises. By mid afternoon we were sitting in the first lock to the "big ditch".
We stopped at La Belle instead of Moore Haven to enjoy their swimming pool and to visit with some friends we met along the way. The afternoon slipped into the darkness before we realized it and happily we spent the night after a huge dinner at the local restaurant.
The people we had met, Helen and Ralph Miller, had just arrived from Mobile, Alabama (originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota) on their first leg of their retirement. Their pristine "Egg" Trawler was loaded with all of the creature comforts including a parrot, a dog, a cat and about a dozen tropical fish. Helen loves to cook and has a neat hobby of making things from sea shells such as ash trays, wall pieces and the like. Helen stated she was going to pay for all of the diesel with her sea shells. Ralph says they should have bought a sail boat.
The next morning at 5:00 Susie woke the Captain with a very large ice cube and where she put the ice cube would make an Irish dancer out of an elephant. Out of bed, showered, shaved and all of the other esses we let go the lines, waved a fond farewell to the Millers and headed for Moore Haven and Lake Okeechobee.
Crossing Lake Okeechobee is easy as long as the wind isn't real strong. We found the Lake as flat as salad oil in a saucer. The water level of the lake was fine, the coffee was plentiful and in no time we were across the lake and staring down the throat of the Port Mayaca Lock. Each of the Lock Tenders are very helpful and willing to offer as much information about the weather and lake conditions as they are able to glean from the boaters passing through. All is fair ahead of us and the forecast is for better.
By early evening we are on the Loxahatchee River. Channel 16 on the VHF is quiet as we give a call to Jupiter Marine. We are lucky, they have a slip for us and we can spend the night. Jupiter Marine is very convenient as we are able to fill up with stores (food, drinks, water) without having to rent a truck. After satisfying SANCHO's thirsts, shopping completed and we are shown to our berth for the night Susie prepares one of our favorite dishes called "Susie"s Hot-Damn Shrimp Casserole".
GARFELDASTEINSKI has to get the rest of her papers for the crossing. We wrote in advance to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries in Nassau to get the "Permit to Import". A Vet in Stuart, Florida was kind enough to come to the boat to give a rabies vaccination to our pet and to provide the required Health Certificate. The health certificate must be obtained within twenty four hours of embarkation. We might add that the good doctor and his wife agreed to come to the boat if they could have some of Susie's Casserole. All of this for just a selfish cat.
SANCHO was put to bed and we filed our float plan with the marina and advised him that if we don't call him by 4:00 pm the next day, send help. Safe for the night, we laid our heads on the pillow and as I drifted from reality to sweet slumber I vaguely remember Susie promising to leave the ice in the bucket.
Early to rise is Susie's motto and at 4:45 Captain Rod finds himself wide eyed and wondering why Susie cannot keep a simple promise. On to the floor I bound, three steps and the ice is gone and by 5:15 we are on our way again. About the time we pass St. Lucie Inlet marker "2" (14364.4/62028.5 and N27-10.00/W80-08.40) Susie serves breakfast on the bridge with coffee so hot I figure it is meant to melt the ice.
Just about everything on the boat has a nickname and our Loran is fondly called "Elmo the Magic Box" or "Elmo" for short. Sigma Marine did the installation of our Loran-C and Magellan GPS navigation equipment just before we left Tampa, Florida. Once "Elmo" has digested the coordinates for WEST END POINT (N26-41.15/W78-58.77 by 14381.5/61724.6) he promptly gives us our heading of 115 degrees. Changing the pages of the Loran we also learn that our destination is 68.4 nautical miles away and that we will arrive in about five hours and forty minutes.
Susie writes the compass heading on a piece of tape and sticks it to the Loran case for reference. We learned this little trick after we found out that we couldn't remember important numbers very well. The reason we use the compass heading on the tape is that the Loran will give us straight line and the compass will give us our corrected heading compensated for wind and current. Should "Elmo" decide to go on an unexpected vacation we will know what compass heading we need to hold. We monitor the heading every hour or so and change the tape when necessary.
Susie and I share the driving by taking two hour turns at the helm during crossings such as this. We like each other to know what is going on in the event one or the other becomes unable to "play" captain. Besides, Susie insists on sharing the fun of boating.
This time the crossing is very pleasant. The skies are but blue skies with a couple of white lines pointing to planes long since gone by. The Straits of Florida are kind to us today and very gentle, almost too nice. During the crossing we saw flying fish, dolphin and endless expanses of beautiful blue water.
We pulled up to the docks at the Yacht Basin at 11:40 am on a Tuesday with our "Q" flag gently flipping to and fro identifying our boat as one in need of immigration service. Properly armed with nationalization papers for Susie and I, registration papers for SANCHO and the other papers for GARFELDASTEINSKI the rituals of immigration was a piece of cake. No illegal firearms aboard and those firearms we had were properly stored and under lock and key.
SANCHO, GARFELDASTEINSKI, Susie and Captain Rod had finally arrived in the beautiful Bahamas. "Transire" in hand, Susie replaces the yellow "Q" flag with the Bahamian courtesy flag and we settle down for the rest of the day. Susie and I head for the plentiful shops to seek bargains and to make preparations for our early morning departure. Again SANCHO receives her juices from the marina, a necessary preparation for an early morning departure.
Susie had coffee made at 4:30 am. By 5:30 we are fed and ready to leave the security of our slip. Susie promptly secures the power cables and the water hoses. Off the boat she bounds to free the lines that are holding SANCHO to the dock. Again aboard she neatly rolls the lines and stows them away. The Captain's right is exercised to the hilt as I sit at the helm with the engines at idle, generator purring out 120 volts and I pretend to check all of the gauges while barking do this and that. Susie lets me play captain.
Everything in its place, we putt putt from the dock and head out the narrow channel and turn south once in 200 feet of water. We are underway to the Berry Islands which is our next leg to this journey. At 6:45 am we round the West End Point and feed "Elmo" the coordinates for the NORTHWEST CHANNEL No. 2 marker (N25-28.40/W78-12.61 or 14319.0/61663.0). "Elmo" promptly responds with a range of 84 nautical miles and a heading of 150 degrees. Our present speed of 11.5 knots give us seven and half hours to enjoy the sun and soft breeze that the weather man gave us.
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