Sailing To The Bahamas In December: Our Sailing Adventure
We finally made it to the Bahamas!! This week’s article may be a little different that most. We want to share with you our experience of sailing to the Bahamas from Florida in December!
Sailing To The Bahamas
As you probably already know, December starts the repeated weather pattern of cold front after cold front with strong northerlies now that hurricane season is over. This weather pattern is typical this time of year for the southern United States and Bahamas, making crossings from Florida to the Bahamas a bit challenging. Read on to learn about how long we waited to sail to the Bahamas, the route we took, the crossing of the Gulf Stream, and our arrival.
The Wait
We arrived to Lake Worth in West Palm Beach on Thursday, November 30, 2023 after an overnight passage from Titusville. The offshore portion of the passage (Canaveral to Lake Worth Inlet) was a bit rolly, and neither of us got much sleep on this passage.
There was a good weather window to the Bahamas sailing on Sunday, December 3, 2023, one that our friends (my sister) took advantage of. However, we weren’t prepared to leave just yet. We still had to get our dog, Mangaux, to the veterinarian for his health certificate, which is required to bring a dog to the Bahamas and bringing a dog to the Caribbean.
We thought, well, we will just catch the next weather window. We had no idea that we would end up waiting a total of 27 days before the next opportunity presented itself.
On a side note, being anchored in West Palm Beach for 27 days was not a bad place at all to hang out. We arrived on the night of the lighting of the sand castle, Sandi. Every night they would play Christmas music that we could hear from the anchorage (I LOVED this, Scott, maybe not so much!) along with a light show.
West Palm Beach also has great access to groceries (Publix is 0.5 miles from the dinghy docks) and tons of restaurants. It is a great place to provision before crossing over to the Bahamas. Be sure to check out Big Bro Pizza for their $10 pizza night on Tuesdays.
During our wait to cross the Gulf Stream, there was one particularly bad storm (not a tropical storm, but sure looked and acted like one!) that brought sustained winds of 40 knots and gusts of 50 knots for hours and hours. ☹
While there were a couple boats that dragged anchor both in our anchorage across from downtown West Palm Beach, and at anchorages north of us, our anchor (and most everyone else’s) held great here.
Once we knew for certain that we wouldn’t be able to make it to the Bahamas for Christmas, we got a slip at Safe Harbor New Port Cove for a few nights to secure the boat, and we were able to spend Christmas with Scott’s dad in Homestead, FL.
The Route
During our 27-day wait for a weather window, we had plenty of time to figure out where we wanted to arrive in the Bahamas to clear Customs and Immigration.
The Bahamas has a great website that lists all of the Ports of Entry where you can clear in.
Leaving from West Palm Beach, many people sail across and check in at West End on Grand Bahama Island. West End is nearly due east from West Palm Beach and would be the shortest route to boat to the Bahamas.
After much consideration, we decided we didn’t want to check in at West End. Our primary concerns were our perceived limited moorings and anchorages in the area compared to other entry ports such as Bimini, and the number of other boats that would be taking advantage of the first weather window in weeks.
One alternative we considered was to check in at Grand Cay. I even found the phone number for the Customs agent there and confirmed they are there 7 days a week, even though they aren’t listed on the Bahama’s Customs website. One advantage of the route to Grand Cay is that you can come onto the bank at the Little Bahama Bank waypoint, which offers a very good clear path onto the bank without much concern for dangerous shoals. Additionally, this waypoint is east northeast of Lake Worth Inlet so you also get to take advantage of the Gulf Stream to an extent in your crossing (always best to follow the current as much as possible!).
We didn’t end up checking in at Grand Cay. The weather window to get there was pretty small, and another weather system was coming the following day. The anchorages at Grand Cay would not provide the best protection from this next wave of strong winds.
So where did we go? We sailed 159 nautical miles from West Palm Beach to Green Turtle Cay, coming onto the bank at the same location as originally planned. We left at 6:00 AM and arrived the next morning at 8:30 AM. We lucked out as high tide was also at 8:30 AM, which allowed us to be able to get into Black Sound with our Hunter 450 Passage and 5.5-foot draft where we got on a mooring ball with Donny’s Boat Rentals and Marina.
If you haven’t been to Green Turtle Cay, you must check it out. It is just different here. As we were coming into Black Sound, a cruiser on a boat in the harbor greeted us with warm “Welcome to Black Sound.” Donny was also more than accommodating when we checked in at Donny’s marina.
The Crossing
Each day during our 27-day wait for a good weather window to cross the Gulf Stream, Scott would check the weather and write down the forecasts. The benefit of writing down the forecasts each day was to notice any changes. Unfortunately, he observed the forecasted winds and waves changing for the worse more often than for the better.
Scott would refer to PredictWind, Marv’s Weather, SailFlow, the National Weather Service and Chris Parker emails. I really felt like it was groundhogs’ day when several days in a row the weather would forecast inclement weather, gale force winds, and high seas. On one occasion Chris Parker suggested that this was the “least bad day” to cross from Florida to the Bahamas.
We ended up leaving the morning of Wednesday, December 27th, even though Chris Parker recommended either leaving the night before, or the afternoon of December 27th each with short weather windows to make it across.
We all know the rule of thumb, do not cross the Gulf Stream with any northerly component to the wind. I even talk about this in Crossing The Gulf Stream article. However, the winds were out of the west north west, and forecasted to be pretty mild, so we made a go of it.
While in the Gulf Stream, we saw north west and west north west winds at 16 to 19 knots for the first 4 hours, and seas 3-5 feet with an occasional 6-foot wave. Well, Chris was right in his predictions and Wednesday morning made for a “salty” passage. Let’s just say we had some major cleanup from items getting tossed around inside the boat once we got into calmer seas.
The waves and wind settled down as the day went on, and as we got out of the Gulf Stream. Once we got onto the Little Bahama Bank, it was flat calm with minimal winds. This made for a very pleasant night passage arriving to Green Turtle the next morning.
The Arrival
Once we got secure on our mooring ball and got checked in with Donny, he drove Scott to the Customs office located at Green Turtle Club in White Sound so we could officially check into the Bahamas.
It was a smooth process with Customs, minus the glitch with Click2Clear (or possibly operator error on my part :/) where it thought we were staying longer than 3 months and charged us $600 instead of $300. While Scott was checking in, there was only one other cruiser checking in at that time.
Summary
While it felt like we would be stuck in West Palm Beach forever, I think it is important to wait for weather that you are comfortable sailing in. I heard of a few boats that poked their noses out into the Atlantic on other days, just to turn right back around and head back in.
Another perk of hanging out in West Palm Beach so long is that we got to visit with Scott’s friends who live in the area as well as his dad and Winnie. It was such a treat to be able to go to Scott’s dad’s place for a few days and celebrate Christmas with them.
So, would we sail from West Palm Beach to Green Turtle Cay again? Absolutely. Just maybe not in December with all of the cold fronts coming in one right after another.
What are your sailing adventures in the Bahamas? Where is your favorite place to check in at? We would love to hear from you and about your experiences.
Live your dream,
