Introduction

Introduction 

I've been dreaming about this trip for years and planning it for the last 6 months.

This first post will be intended to outline some of the background and planning I have done, leading up to my departure on around October 8, 2017.

My first interest in the Bahamas goes back to the mid 1980s when I chartered a Stevens 47 in the BVIs for 10 days.  The constant 25 knot trade winds made it fairly rough and there wasn't a lot of protection from the winds.  Also, there were basically no charts for the area and chart plotters didn't exist at that time.  All navigation was line of sight, cruising books, and a single 11 x 17 inch sketch of the islands provided by the charter company. 

Soon after that trip, I began wondering what it would be like to charter a boat in the Bahamas.  I found a few maps and assumed that cruising the Bahamas would be much more difficult since the waters were much more shallow than the BVIs.  In fact, the idea of cruising the Bahamas seemed nearly impossible. 

Then, in 2014, I helped my friend Phil Schnering bring his Endevour 43 back from St. Thomas to Baltimore.  We spent about a week passing through the Bahamas.  We had some big picture charts but most of our detailed navigation was using electronic charts on our smart phones.  They seemed accurate and worked well. 

After that, it was just a matter of time before I cruised the Bahamas in my own boat.

Click here to go to The Big Picture