No, not Stella Maris on Long Island. We were on the wrong side of Long Island for that.
We were going to stop at Mayaguana but kept on running through the night and morning passed Mayaguana and arrived at Sand Bore Channel off West Caicos on the South side of Provo around noon today. We had wind driven waves of 3 to perhaps 6' and long period swells up to 10' when we where out of the lee of the Crooked/Acklins Islands. Biggest swells we saw were off West Caicos in the morning on till we got in the lee of West Caicos and Provo. If it hadn't been for the wind driven waves the ride would have been very pleasant due to the long period of the swells. All in all it wasn't to bad and we only broke a cheap fruit bowl.
Anchored off Sapodilla Bay on the South side of Provo and cleared customs and immigration at the commercial dock around the corner from here. The weather routers said tomorrow would be the best day to head through the reef out in front of Provo/Grace Bay and on into Turtle Cove Marina. So the plan is to send the 377 Intrepid we tow in on it's own and then we will follow in after it.
The trip down the West side of the Exumas and Long Island was very cool since I had always wanted to but never had the chance to do it. And it was quite calm as well. I went in tandem with a friend of mine and the boat he runs. A 109' Johnson. He is on his way to Puerto Rico and had always wanted to try this back route as well. He and I scouted the route the day before in the tender he tows. (A 20 foot something Sea Hunter with twin 150s on it.) Since on the charts it shows some skinny water, if you draw 7' like we both do, in a couple of places off Great Exuma. But the route turned out fine and we hit the shallow areas on a mid falling tide so we had more water than we saw the day before when we scouted it at low tide. Never had less than 3-4' under the keels. This route saved us from having to deal with the rough beam sea conditions out in Exuma sound on the East side of the islands.
The scouting day was a long one. 50+ miles down from SCYC and back to check out the two shallow spots on the charts in a open fisherman in a stiff chop. My friend and I both laughed at how stiff we were at the end of the day getting out of the boat. Getting older sucks.
But it was well worth it just for the peace of mind to actually know what kind of depths we would see on the route. And for the really cool key we stopped at in the middle of no where that had a beautiful beach on it and was oddly hollow in the middle like a doughnut with a big hole and brackish pond in the middle of it.
I'll post some pics when I get a chance. If the island wasn't in the middle of nowhere it would be a perfect spot for charterers or guests to spend the day swimming, snorkeling and hanging out under the big Casuarina tree that was shading part of the beach. A real picture perfect beach.
The only bummer of the trip has been the fact that after having two brand new Garmin autopilots installed one after the other due to the first one never working correctly. And after having the Garmin factory guys on board to tune the second unit, it still failed again and we haven't had a working AP since we left Nassau. :-( There is talk of Garmin people flying in here to straighten it out, again. We'll see.
Anyway, I'll post some more pictures when I get a chance.
