Port #2 – Chub Cay

Hey blog followers, We’ve had a couple interesting days, no Internet or Phone at our 2nd stop – Chub Cay.
So trying to catch up in this post. We are currently in Nassau Bahamas after a pretty rough ride from Chub Cay to Nassau (more to come).

I wrote this Chub Cay Post yesterday while we were doing our 100 mile trip yesterday, but just posting it today.

Port #2 – Chub Cay (Tuesday, April 4th)

It was another early start today.
Wake up at 06:00 hrs
Shove off at 07:00 hrs.

We had 101 miles to cover today, to move from North Bimini Island to Chub Cay (pronounced “Chub Key”).

The early morning jobs included –
1. Securing the Salon & Galley for rough seas.
2. Coiling up all the heavy 50 Amp power cables
3. Prepping the dock lines for an unassisted on-boat departure
4. Setting the Way Point & creating the Auto-Guideance Routes into the Chartplotter & IPAD.

Me & Jonell are very fortunate that the Lucks allow us to be fully submersed into the work activities.
It brings back great memories for us from The Loop.
Captain Luck allows me to set up the Chartplotter each day & Captain the Mahi while underway.
Maybe Docking will come later in the trip.

Our departure from Bimini was accompanied with some anxiety, because the wind had kicked up last night, and rocked the boat well into our night sleep.
Windfinder & Sailflow were both predicting about 15mph winds & 2-3 ft waves out of the east for our trip (not bad). But, we weren’t really sure that the ride would be soft, until we got out and around to the east side of Bimini Island.

All turned out OK- the waves were 1-2ft in the morning, growing to 3-4ft with some white caps in the afternoon. The waves were on our bow, creating a relatively soft fore-aft pitching ride.

It was good to get the 100 mile trip to Chub Cay behind us, because the wind is projected to increase again tomorrow & for the next 3 days. If we didn’t leave Bimini today,  we would have been stuck there until Sunday

The winds will kick up another 60% for tomorrow’s ride into Nassau, but we only have a 50 mile voyage so we can tough it out for the short ride. (as I edit this post one day later, OMG did the waves kick up Wednesday).

So back to our ride from Bimini Bahamas to Chub Cay. You may wonder ” what the heck do you do for a 10-11 hour / 100 mile ride ?“

Well, we do the following –
1. Talk
2. Read
3. Take Naps
4. Listen to Music (Jazz & Blues)
5. Eat Lunch
6. Play “What’s that object in the distant horizon”
7. And of course we watch the Chartplotter & IPAD, and adjust the Auto-Pilot course as needed.

The Mahi Mahi has been a great vessel – she purrs along at 9mph / 1800rpm, and consumes a thrifty 5 gallons per hour (2 miles per gallon).

The new Chartplotter & Auto-Pilot that Jerry put in are working fabulously.
The Chartplotter has some nice features.
1. The Auto-Guideance feature is easy to program.
2. The Auto-Pilot overlays a nice tracking line which contains tic marks for distance. It’s easy to see how far away you are from the next marker, obstruction,  or other boats.
3. The Chartplotter is also acting as an AIS system,  showing us other boats near us & their names if they are transmiting. Jerry says that he did not pay for AIS, but it’s working.

See the photos below ;
Purple Line = Auto Guideance Course
Black Line w Tic Marks = Auto-Pilot Heading
Little Green Triangles  = Other Vessels near us
(see vessel “last mistake” right behind us).

Back to the game – “It’s a game where one of us says ” what’s that in the distant horizon?”.
Then we come up with crazy guesses –
1. It’s a very large tower.
2. It’s a freighter
3. It’s an oil rig
4. It’s a sailboat
5. It’s an Island
The Chartplotter is set on a 2 mile graduation mark, so the chart only shows about 20 miles of distance. And during the game, you can’t highlight the object.

Here is an example.
Ok, no cheating blog readers – you can’t blow up the 1st photo !

Tonight we are staying at the Chub Cay Marina & Resort. It is a private club, but does permit transient boat docking ($7/ft).
And if you pay an extra $19 per person, you can then eat at their clubhouse restaurant !
This was not a highly anticipated stop for us, but the options are limited in this area.
If we didn’t stay at Chub, we would have to had traveled 140 miles & 15 hours in one day, or anchor near Chub (and there were no good anchorages).

We decided after a long day on the water, a nice plumbed hot shower would be good.
So we arrived at Chub Cay only to find out
1. The Internet was not working
2. The entire island had been without cell service for hours before our arrival.
3. The Showers closed at 7pm (WHAT !!!)

But overall, Chub looked like a great place, and folks were very nice, but we really did not want to get stuck there for 3 days.

With The Lord’s blessing,  we will be off to Nassua tomorrow for 2 days of rest, before we head to “Highborne Cay”, our first island stop in the Exuma Islands.

Thanks for reading.
Sea you in a couple days.