A continuation from my earlier post, http://wp.me/pKtoE-by.
With the customs and immigration process behind us we were all ready for some adventure and food. Not specifically in that order. The folks at Dive Abaco were quick to suggest a local coffee shop down the road a bit where we could grab some sustenance. It didn’t take long, and the five of us found ourselves walking down a narrow road leading out of Marsh Harbor in search of our first Bahamian meal. I was in heaven. I’ve always loved walking around the islands wearing my goofy straw hat, some flops, and a backpack. It’s about as far as i can get from the bustling, tech-crazed world I live in back home.
A half mile later we stumbled into this wonderful little coffee shop where locals congregated in the corner, and the smell of fresh pastries filled the air. We quite literally bought the mother and daughter team out of everything they had in the deli case. We were starving, and didn’t care who knew. You could almost see disbelief strewn across the faces of the old women in the corner as we loaded up our backpacks with food, and slammed back coffee last meal style. With some life juice (coffee) flowing through us, and the fresh doughnuts being doled out we were ready to take on the world. Well, we were at least ready to walk back to the boat and figure out what to do next.
The rest of the clan didn’t arrive until later that afternoon, so we had some down time to explore and figure out where to grab some supplies. One of the challenges and benefits of not having a car on the island was that the boat had to be our lifeline to town. If we needed food, fuel, scuba tanks filled or supplies we had to rely on the boat to take us to where we needed to go. It’s fun, but it can also be a pain in the ass… not to mention expensive. I calculated that a simple run to Marsh Harbor costs us about $15 each way in the boat. Not that it was an issue, but I’m one of those people who likes to keep everything in perspective.
We loaded back into the boat after stopping by Dive Abaco one last time to negotiate tank rentals for the week. Everyone on the trip was going to be diving, and SCUBA tanks are almost always easier to rent than to own and travel with. You won’t believe how small a boat gets when tanks are added to the equation. We left the tanks for another day and ran back to the house; passing all of the skiffs, blow boats, trawlers and commercial vessels still tied up in the harbor.
The girls were arriving later that afternoon with a brief connection in Nassau, and we wanted to have the house in order for their arrival. Now, our home was rather amazing, but it did have one HUGE issue. It hadn’t been used in months, and the inside was musty and damp. So much so, that we had opened the entire place up for 24 hours and it was still an issue. Nothing like staying in a million-dollar home that smelled like the bilge of a boat. To add insult to injury one of the AC units was jacked, and made a sound similar to someone throwing a million pennies into the blades of a helicopter every time it was turned on. One call to the property manager and the house was teaming with a cleaning crew, and a repairman brandishing a new AC unit.
Just a few short hours later the team started trickling in the door with rolly-bags in tow. It was a whole bunch of hugs, “whoa look at this place” coupled with a few “I see that you all made it” comments. We quickly followed hellos with cocktails and an amazing sunset. Finally, the gang was all here.
A continuation from my earlier post, http://wp.me/pKtoE-b6.
The view from our back deck, taken as soon as we stepped foot on Bahamian soil.
After 7 hours on the boat, 280 gallons of fuel, 4 iPod playlists and some serious victory dances we finally made it to Marsh Harbor. The beginning of the trip proved to be a challenge, but we’d managed to make it to our destination in just enough time to try to figure out where our house was. Oh yeah, you thought we actually knew where we were staying? Ha. That would require too much planning, and if you haven’t figured out by now the house was the least of our worries.
We’d rented the place off of VRBO or some similar site, and the couple that owned the home neglected to give us actual GPS coordinates, thus rendering the “It’s on Eastern Shores” directions worthless. We knew we were in the right area, but the houses were all fairly similar looking in nature. Our saving grace was the unique dock our home had, and I’d managed to remember that it made a T-shape when I looked at it from Google Earth. Thanks for that Google. We were able to pick the house out fairly easily and we threw dock lines just as the sun was setting. Not half bad for some rookies from the states.
We’d made it, the house was amazing, the boat had performed beyond anything I could have asked, and the sweet taste of victory was something we’d all tasted that first morning. Unfortunately victory was all we tasted, because we had no real food. Everyone got up, threw on some clothes and we loaded the boat to head into Marsh Harbor. We needed to get fuel (if they had any), clear customs, check in with the Harbormaster, and get some local island breakfast.
Pulling into Marsh was something I wish I could describe in this blog, but it’s simply not possible. The harbor reminded me of all those wonderful places in the Saints I’d visited years prior. You had a slew of sailboats, trawlers, skiffs and local fishing boats all moored up in no particular order. Locals and passersby were eating toast and drinking coffee on their decks, happy to throw you the casual wave as we scooted by. It took us a minute to find the fuel docks we were looking for, but a nice guy named Andy was happy to greet us and give us help with the customs and immigration folks. We actually weren’t able to get fuel for the boat until we cleared customs, and I wasn’t going to try any sneaky business with the Bahamian officials. We had our super fashionable bright yellow “Quarantine” flag flying, as soon as we hit Bahamian waters, so Andy knew were fresh off the Florida Coast. We called the Harbormaster and added ourselves to the list of folks who needed to be cleared that morning. A few hours later, $1600 in fuel, a lot of paper work and some nice locals added up to us being cleared for the trip. For those of you wondering what you can/can’t bring, and how to declare it I’m happy to chat offline. We did take a fair amount of munitions with us, and a great deal of cash. None of which was an issue, and we did it all by the book.
The view from the front of the house
You can read the rest of the journey here, http://wp.me/pKtoE-bF.
A continuation from my earlier post,http://wp.me/pKtoE-b1.
We were about 100 yards into what we thought was the cut, but the depth was lingering around 4 feet. The good news was we’d be standing in waist-deep water if we sank, but no one wanted to deal with that. Once I felt like we made it into the channel and had some descent water under the props it was time to roll. We’d spent over an hour trying to determine where we needed to enter the channel, and we had time to make up from our storm experience earlier that morning. We had 11 feet under the boat, and it was game time. The boat popped up on plane as if to scream “These idiots actually did it!” and we were off. We managed to run the remaining 5 hours at an average speed of 30 knots with nothing but beautiful flat seas, and the occasional starfish or ray sitting under the boat as we sped overhead.
We’d made it, and we were now enjoying that amazing crystal clear water, beautiful skies and clear running. You can see from the photo above that the bank is fairly open and the depths are consistent. We were using our compass headings and “MOB” coordinates to help us determine distances between points. This would tell us precisely when to turn to our next heading and keep us out of trouble. As promised in the Abacos Guide, we did encounter fish muds, and they scared the hell out of every person on the boat including myself. We slowed for the first encounter, but once we felt confident in what they looked like it wasn’t an issue. A fish mud is nothing more than a cloud of sand/mud stirred up by schools of bottom feeding fish, but this mud tends to look like very shallow water to approaching boaters.
Fish muds, as noted by Steve Dodges Cruising Guide to The Abacos
The initial run on the bank is fairly easy once you have your coordinates planned. You’ll scoot just north of Mangrove Cay, turn to starboard and shoot just south of Great Sale Cay before skimming the top of Little Abaco and heading onto Spanish Cay. The water is amazing and the visibility on our trip was simply incredible. One of the major benefits of this course is that you’re in a semi-protected area the entire time, and Cays are great buffers between open ocean and shallow waters you run in. We never experienced more than moderate chop; despite winds kicking up in the afternoon to 15 knots.
The only thing I was semi-concerned with were the fuel gauges… specifically the two that were empty, and the third that was reading about half a tank. I knew we’d have plenty of fuel to make the trip with about 25% reserve, but we’d run heavier than ever before, and we used up an insane amount of fuel on the trip over due to the storm. I made the call to pull into Green Turtle Cay and fuel up just to be safe. We’d originally planned on clearing customs here, but it was past 5pm at this point and the offices were now closed. No worries though, as we had 24 hours to clear once we were in Bahamian waters. We came cruising into Green Turtle a little before 6, and everyone was excited. This was going to be our first Bahamian experience on the trip, and we were finally going to be standing on Bahamian soil. I see the fuel docks off in the distance and pull back on the throttles just before the break-wall. As we approach the old, sun-beaten dock hand walks out and yells, “Need Fuel?”, to which I replied, “Yep!” The next words he mutters aren’t exactly confidence inspiring. “We’re out, and the fuel boat didn’t come today… matter fact, everyone around here’s out.” Well shit. We managed to get all the way to Green Turtle Cay only to find out all of the neighboring islands were also out of fuel. We said our goodbyes, turned to port and proceeded back to the harbor entrance. The whole time my Dad is just smiling, and he finally said, “Well boys… welcome to the Bahamas. Sometime we’ve got fuel, and sometime we don’t”. He was having way too much fun with this.
The run into Green Turtle was slightly interesting, as you had to double back on your heading to enter the marina.
You can find the next part of the journey here, http://wp.me/pKtoE-by.
A continuation from my earlier post, http://wp.me/pKtoE-aG.
Notice the pole is missing from the channel entrance and both sides are marked with a + meaning rocks
West End was a welcome sight, but I knew that we had our work cut out for us by navigating the shallow waters. Lane and I were not new to coastal navigation, but we’d never been to the Bahamas before. I’d read every book, blog, story and napkin with any type of navigation advice on it, and I knew this would be tough. We overshot the entrance to the Bahama Bank by a mile or so due to the storm and the Gulf Stream pushing us north. I looked at the GPS and to my chagrin it wasn’t much help as the software was a few years out of date. Nothing like having $12k dollars of GPS equipment rendered useless because my dumbass didn’t spend $100 on software. I wanted to punch myself in the face… don’t worry, I didn’t. We did what any smart person would have done. We went slow and pulled out the binoculars.
Yes, here we are with three GPS screens, a heap of technology and we’re using $44 binoculars from Bass Pro Shop. The markers weren’t present where they should have been, and nothing seemed to line up. Couple that with the amazingly clear water of the Bahamas and you’re in a constant state of an early-onset heart attack thinking you’re in 2 feet of water. It was then that I resorted to the books. That’s right; in all of my worrying and planning I managed to buy the one single critical piece of technology this entire trip now rested on. Yes, I pulled out a book, but not just any book. It was more like a Bible for those looking to get to the Abacos by boat. The Cruising Guide to Abaco has long been hailed as a “must have” for people like us trying to make the run to the islands. I managed to pick up a copy on Amazon before we’d left, and it proved to be more valuable than any piece of equipment we purchased.
After reading a few of the pages we came to realize that we aren’t seeing markers because they are no longer there. The hurricanes of years past had long sense taken out any markers that we could have used to navigate the shallow shoals. Freaking perfect! We made it, and now we’re going to run the damn boat up on some rocks because we’re incompetent.
Keep in mind that this trip was made in a boat that has more technology than most people’s homes, and Lane and I were fully versed in the methods of navigating by GPS, a compass and even stars. But this was something all together different. We’d never been in unfamiliar waters with a book and a compass to help us navigate the remaining 5 hours of the trip. But guess who had? My Dad. He doodled around a bit, came back, took a look at the book and said, “we’ll use dead reckoning to get us there”. Lane and I looked at him like we’d just seen a ghost. The thought that he honestly expected us to use an eight-trillion year old method of navigation to get us to the Abacos was crazy. The only problem is that we didn’t have a better idea, and we had to get to the house before dark or we were going to be in serious trouble. We backed away from West End a few miles to get our bearings and headed for what we thought was the entrance to the channel. Keep in mind that 20 feet to either side were rocks that sat in less than two feet of water. Due to the water clarity and the time of day you couldn’t really tell where deep water started or stopped. We were heading in with blind faith, and a compass heading.
What’s left of a well-worn Abaco Guide book
You can find the next part of the journey here, http://wp.me/pKtoE-b6.
I guess it would make sense to take a minute and tell you about our boat Tripppin. Tripppin is a 2004 Hydra Sports Vector 33 with triple Mercury 275 Verados. The engines are 06′ models and were hung on the boat after the original owner tossed the 300 HPDIs that came on her from the factory in Tennessee.
We (my business partner/best friend and I) bought the boat by total chance off eBay on New Years night in 2010. Owning a boat with triple 275 Verados seemed like a good idea after a few cocktails, and we’d been looking for a new ride for months. We placed a bid that night, and hit the road to pick her up a few weeks later. This was our first major ($ wise) boating investment, and we were all pretty nervous. The nerves calmed when we pulled into Biloxi the night before we arranged to pick up the boat. A few hours at the Craps table, and we were all ahead enough to feel good about the day. The next morning, we met up with the seller, took the boat out into a nasty windy, choppy bay and stretched her legs.
Sea trial day
The Hydra is extremely dry and comfortable, and the appeal for this large a a boat was being driven by our vacations including more and more friends over the years. You spend enough time on a boat with dive and fishing gear all over the deck, and you’ll realize that a boat is almost never too large. We’d also wanted to try our hand at some real island hopping and the Hydra was well equipped to handle the job. One the way home we (Lane) decided to name her Tripppin (3 Ps) for many reasons, but the most obvious was our intentions to take the boat on a lot of trips and the other small fact that we were probably tripping when we thought of buying a boat like this.
The trip home
We spent a lot of time upgrading her navigation systems, truing up the electrical system and getting the Verados up to snuff but it was all worth it. I’ve owned/co-owned numerous popular brands like Fountain, Donzi, Proline and so on, but the layout and usability of the Hydra is unbeatable.
Dash upgrade
Specs
Builder: Hydra-Sports
Dimensions
LOA: 33 ft 0 in
Beam: 10 ft 6 in
Maximum Draft: 2 ft 10 in
Bridge Clearance: 7 ft 9 in
Engines
Engine Brand: Mercury
Engine Model: 4-Stroke Supercharged Outboards
Dimensions
Displacement: 7500
Engines
Total Power: 825
Tanks
Fuel: 360
Fresh Water: 29
A fresh new name
Proud owners
Read about our latest adventure in Tripppin here, http://wp.me/pKtoE-9N.
A continuation from my earlier post, http://wp.me/pKtoE-af.
The trusty ACR ditch bag, that stays full of gear, and our ACR EPIRB.
Ok, so that part where the lighting was nonexistent lasted about two more minutes. The seas were now solid 4-5 footers, the rain kicked up along with the wind, and the lightning was popping off in the distance. Any boater will tell you that this is one of the worst feelings you can have when you’re 50 miles offshore with other people’s lives in your hands. I looked at my Dad, who until this point had remained calm and collected. He was now dawning a spiffy green poncho, his Costas and a miserable smirk across his face. I looked at him and said, “What do I do?” because I honestly had no idea other than to turn around. His answer was a myriad of questions like, “How large is the storm?”, “How far do we have left?”, and “What do you think?”. I looked at him and said, “I have no freaking idea…I’m trying to keep us floating, and we’re still 20 miles from West End!” He slid in next to me, pulled up the weather chart and the sonar on our Garmin systems, laid it over the GPS maps to show us exactly how large the storm was, and what we were looking at. Just another reminder that my Dad knows a lot about a lot, and just as soon as I think I’ve got him beat with modern technology, I don’t. Fantastic, we could finally see what we were dealing with. The bad news was that we’d spent about an hour trying to get around a storm the size of New York. I backed down off the throttles, as it was apparent we weren’t out running anything. I looked at the weary, cold, wet crew and said, “What do you guys want to do?” We took a group vote, and after a spirited four-minute debate we decided to punch through it. We made sure the ditch bag, jackets and safety equipment were ready should we need them, and we all hunkered down for a knee-jarring, ass-kicking ride through the dark clouds in front of us.
The waves were pretty gnarly and the rain made it almost impossible for anyone to hide from that miserable sting. We pushed our way through the worst of it for 10 minutes, trying everything from plowing into the waves and running over them at 35knots. Nothing seemed to make it better. That was until we made it inside the storm. Once we broke the outer side of the thunderhead we were greeted with an eerie flat sea with almost no wind or rain. I wasn’t going to stick around and count my blessings, so we put Tripppin on the pins and made the final push at 50+ knots. Once on the other side of the storm we were greeted with sunlight, blue sky and flat seas. It wasn’t long until we saw the beautiful water tower on the tip of West End letting us know we’d made it to the Bahamas.
Sorry for the lack of photos in this post. We weren’t concerned with the cameras during this particular part of the trip. I promise to make it up to you with an awesome video on the next post.
You can find the next part of the journey here, http://wp.me/pKtoE-b1.
A continuation from my earlier post, http://wp.me/pKtoE-a4.
The Next morning most of us awoke to mild hangovers, and adding insult to injury we were faced a somewhat nasty weather forecast. The seas were ranging from 1-3 feet inshore, building to 2-4 feet with thunderstorms and high winds in the gulfstream. It would figure that the day we’re crossing would be nasty, but we’d come this far and we weren’t turning around. Four foot seas were doable in the boat, so we loaded knowing were going to get a little beating and soaking wet. It was ironic since the weather that morning was so nice in the marina. We took off out of Lake Worth Inlet and headed for the tip of West End.
Copyright: Google Maps
The weather was great, the seas were solid two-footers, and the radio blared on Jimmy Buffett for the first hour. We only had four miles to go that day before we were officially in the Gulf Stream, and the weather seemed to be holding out for us early on. After we were about 25 miles offshore Lane and I started to notice this nasty thunderhead off to the southeast. We both said nothing, which was pretty typical. We’ve been doing these types of trips long enough that a lot of things go unspoken between us, but not unnoticed. A few minutes later I finally tuned to him and said, “We can’t get in front of this thing.” To which he said, “Let’s shoot north, speed up, and see what happens.” I honestly didn’t have a better plan and this storm wasn’t looking like it was going to break or slow its progress. I sped up. We were now cruising at an average speed of 36mph and the seas were picking up. Not only were we getting some nasty bumps on the keel, but the temps fell off drastically. So much so that everyone on the boat was now cold. The three things you never want to experience 30 miles offshore are nasty thunderheads with lightning, and cold air. Fortunately, this storm didn’t look like it had any lightning up its sleeve… but I’ve been wrong before.
You can find the next part of the journey here, http://wp.me/pKtoE-aG.
A continuation from my earlier post, http://wp.me/pKtoE-a1.
Ok, so we left Atlanta for our boat ramp in West Palm Beach, which was a mere 600 miles away. Once my Dad, Lane and I hit the road we were in high spirits, and the nerves calmed a bit as I looked back on all the planning we’d done. The run-of-show was to drive to Orlando, pick up Rusty and Sarah on the side of the Turnpike, and keep making our way to West Palm. Once we stopped off at our usual “road trip Chipotle” we finally made it to the rest stop to get the hoodlums that would accompany us on the remainder of the trip. Rusty and Sara were more than ready to get on the road after hanging out with the local Floridians at the travel plaza. A part of me still thinks that they love the local trucker lingo. A few more hours and we had the boat in the water loaded to the hilt, fueled up and the truck stowed in a safe spot in the parking lot for the next 10 days. Time to go!
Our first boat fuel bill for the trip
Ok, well it wasn’t really time to go, because it was dusk, and the sun was setting after an 11-hour day on the road. Fortunately, we were smart enough to plan for a hotel and we shacked up at the Sail Fish Marina for the evening. We tied the boat up, ordered some drinks at the bar, and proceeded to unload the roughly 2k pounds of gear we’d packed. Ironically, this was the part of the trip I was the most concerned about since boats like ours love to disappear in South Florida. It’s so bad that insurance premiums for triple-engine boats are about 7X more in Miami than they are in Georgia. The boat was tied up, and we were happy to finally have the first major leg of the trip complete.
Pulling into Sailfish Marina
You can find the next part of the journey here, http://wp.me/pKtoE-af.
A continuation from my earlier post, http://wp.me/pKtoE-9N.
Now, let me preface by saying that these aren’t normal vacations like 99% of the world takes. It takes a special breed of person to come on a trip like this. There are no guarantees when you set out on a trip that you pulled out of thin air and completely made up. You may end up holed up in a dive bar for 10 days waiting out nasty storms, being sick from contaminated water, or flying in insanely expensive parts on a bush plane for the boat that you broke the day before. Turns out only one of those actually happened, but all of them have happened to me at some point in my travels. The people you choose to invite may end up hating you for dragging them along and asking them to spend a small fortune to finance a trip from hell. On the flipside, when it all works out the experience is nothing short of life-altering excitement and fun. One phone call and we had our usual rag-tag crew of wanna-be island dwellers locked down for better or worse. It was time to load and go. Knowing that everyone’s schedules wouldn’t work out we determined that it was best to take half the crew over by boat and have the other folks fly in. That way, the boat would be light enough to make the trip safely and everyone could enjoy the ride over without being crowded.
Tickets were booked, and the boat was prepped after some serious hustling by Lane and I. Boats are never really 100%, but that’s another post for another day. By the time the week rolled around we were all so excited we couldn’t’ stand it. I was both nervous, and excited for “the crossing”. The boat was plenty capable, but I had doubts about my skills. Of course, no one knew how nervous I was because that wouldn’t be a good thing to show my wife, family or passengers. Whenever you set out to do something new it’s always a challenge, but this was unique since I’d have other people’s lives in my hands. For those of you who came on the trip that are reading this now… I never had a doubt. Ha.
Lane and I making some last-minute mods
You can find the next part of the journey here, http://wp.me/pKtoE-a4.
So the title is a little misleading, but we did actually take an amazing trip to the Bahamas on our boat (Tripppin). Yes, you read that right; we drove a boat from the coast of Florida all the way to the Abacos. Where are the Abacos you ask? Well, they are in the middle of nowhere, and that was the whole point of the trip. The Abacos are a rather large chain of islands, but the towns are fairly small and have collective population around 15,000. They aren’t very easy to get to by boat unlike many other areas of the Bahamas, (Bimini, West End) and that was sort of the allure of this place.
Ok, so let me back up a bit. First, you need to know that I grew up with a Dad, who for most of my life I recall being single and adventurous. Now he was always around, so don’t get the wrong idea, but he did know how to have fun with his friends. They would pack up for weeks, sometimes a month at a time to head to the islands. What islands you ask? Any of them, and probably all of them at some point or another in his travels. What I’m getting at here is that I grew up with a Father who knew how to see things that most people only read about in magazines, or noticed on the cover of a Conde Nast publication while waiting at the airport to board a flight to Toledo.
Dad at home on the water
When you grow up around that type of “go anywhere, see it all” mentality it’s tough to shake it, even as you get older. I’m sitting here writing this with the thought of my next trip in the back of my mind, and that’s something I really appreciate. It’s also something that can be a real pain to juggle with the typical two-week corporate vacation policy most of the working world is dealt. Couple that with the fact that I’m not a Kennedy or Kardashian, and you’re now looking at travel through real persons eyes.
Ok, now for the trip. My buddies, Lane, Scott and I have been planning a trip to the “islands” for as long as I can remember. You can’t blame us after years of listening to my Dad tell us stories of his shenanigans, and believe me when I tell you that my Dad can tell stories. We’d sit around and think of cool places to go, what type of boat we’d take and what to do when we got there. Not normal kid vacations by any stretch.
The boys on an old trip in the Keys (From left to right, Lane, Myself, Scott)
When the time was finally right for us to start planning this adventure, life was a whole lot different than it was when we planned these trips a mere 18 years earlier. Kids, wives, mortgages and corporate work schedules were in the picture. We’d all grown up, and somehow that never really worked its way into the plans we made as kids. Go figure. No matter. We were determined to make this happen, so the planning began. Turned out Scott wasn’t going to be able to make it due to family obligations, and Lane and I knew that was completely understandable. Lane could especially relate, as he and Casie had just been blessed with a bouncing-baby-boy of their own. Once Scott declined I knew this trip wouldn’t be my last trip like this, because at some point in my life I’m going to drag that guy to the islands like we’d always planned as kids. We pushed on, set the dates, started preparing the boat, and rounding up the usual suspects to accompany us.
Stay tuned, as I attempt to recap this amazing trip in a series of small stories.
You can find the next part of the journey here, http://wp.me/pKtoE-a1.
