Log of the Cape Dory 'Atea'

[FarrellTed]

As a beneficiary of years of vicarious sailing on this forum, I finally have something to contribute for all the snow- and ice-bound Cape
Dorians this winter. I have planned a three-month cruise in the Bahamas on my Cape Dory 22D Atea. Here are excerpts from her log, more to follow.

3 February 2025. The boat was hauled to Fort Lauderdale and launched at Harbour Towne Marina, in a scenic location right next to the airport.
4 February 2025. Lading in the morning--water, food, organizing gear. In the afternoon, moved to Palm Royale Marina. Took a shakedown motor out to Port Everglades to make sure the motor and electronics were all functioning properly.
5 February 2025. Worked on organizing everything, obsessively checked the weather. Weather has been calm for about a week, conditions are good for a crossing except winds are only a hair south of due East. Based on checking the weather every day for a month, it appears to me that when winds do come out of the south, they have been rather forceful, with wave heights up to 7-8 feet. So rather than wait, decided to leave tomorrow. Filled out the Bahamas customs forms online.
6 February 2025. Plan is to sail/motor sail from Fort Lauderdale to West End, Grand Bahama. Distance 68 nm, bearing 58 degrees magnetic. I estimate if I can make 80 magnetic that will account for the current, but that is only 20 degrees off the wind, so I will probably overshoot. Crossing will take anywhere from 15 to 24 hours.
Cast off the lines around 1 pm. Topped off on fuel and ice. Made the cut at Port Everglades at 1:45 p.m. Motorsailed from 2 to 4 pm on a heading of 70 degrees. Passed a fleet of Portuguese men of war. At 4, turned off engine and started sailing, so as not to arrive in West End at 2 am. Best I could make was a heading of 55 degrees as the wind was nearly directly east and light. Speed decreased from 7.5 knots motorsailing to 4 knots under sail, making the ETA a more civilized 9 a.m. Around 4.30 pm, sailed through a school of juvenile tuna, probably only a foot long, zooming around, jumping out of the water, and feeding. Around 5 p.m., the GPS is showing I am moving on a 26 degree heading, even with the boat pointed at 50 degrees, due to the Gulf Stream. The boat feels like it is sailing at around 1-2 knots, but the GPS shows 5 knots. Around 5.15 wind hauled just a hair further south and freshened a tiny bit, so the GPS showed a heading of 30 degrees. Around 6, it became obvious that if I continued solely under sail, I would end up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I would love to visit there some day, but today is not the day. Fired up the iron wind and pointed Atea due East. 7 p.m. Despite a bright half moon, Mars, Venus, and Orion (including his sword, but not his bow, obscured by the moon) were all visible. North Star hidden behind fair weather clouds. 7.45 p.m. Bright, long-lasting shooting star. 8 p.m. Big Dipper rising in the NE, standing on its handle. Not sure I've ever seen it from this angle before, certainly not from my own boat crossing the Gulf Stream. In any case, it is reassuring to see that the North Star agrees with my compass, I'm heading East. 9.30 p.m. Another shooting star. Position 32 nm due West of West End. Trying to flatten the mainsail to make more easting. 11.15 p.m. Tacked toward West End, continuing to motor sail. Heading 150. Speed slowed from 5.5 knots to 3.7 knots, so still in the Gulf Stream, but not as strong as earlier. 11.30 p.m. Turned off engine as wind has turned a bit North of East. Making 3 knots. Lovely sailing in moon and starlight.
7 February 2025. 2.45 a.m. Moon set. West End is now 20 nm directly upwind. Turned motor back on. Motored slowly to arrive after customs opens. 8 a.m. Arrived off the Old Bahama Bay marina at West End. What a lovely place this is. Small, quiet, with a beautiful beach on the north side of the island and a small, attractive resort. Checked in with customs, they authorized a 100-day stay. Yippee!

From Port Everglades to West End was 68 nm. Since I overshot by about 8 miles, total distance sailed was approximately 84 miles. Used 2.5 gallons of diesel in 13 hours of motoring.

More to follow when internet is available. . .

[Jim Walsh]

Thank you for sharing your cruise with the forum members. For those of use whose boats are winterized and sitting on the hard under their snow covered winter covers, it’s a welcome break from looking out upon a snowy landscape. Please drop us a progress report of your cruise when able.
Best of luck and stay safe.

[FarrellTed]

8 February 2025. 1000, Headed out of West End. Tried to take the cut south of Indian Cay, but it was too shallow, so turned around and headed north to the main channel north of Indian Rock. Once through the cut, raised sails and hand steered for about an hour until out of the shallow, narrow, unmarked channel. Destination is Mangrove Cay, about 21 nm NE of West End. Sailed at 3.5 to 4.8 knots in light 8 knot E breeze. Crazy clear blue & green Bahamian water that I haven't seen in 25 years. Wow. Set auto pilot at 1115 on approximately 60 degree heading. Will continue that heading as wind allows until 1415, then evaluate. 1215, out of sight of land. Water is 14 feet deep, easy to see the bottom. Unable to maintain 60 degrees as wind lightens. Speed drops to 2.5-3 knots. Aiming to tack at 27.02 N, 78.47W in order to get to Mangrove Cay, located at 26.54N, 78.38W. 1500 Position 26.56N, 78.52W. 1518 visited by a tern, who flew three times round the boat, decided I was boring, and left me to my own devices. 1600 position 26.59N, 78.50W. Wind freshening just a bit. 1650 tacked toward Mangrove Cay. We need a course of 130 degrees to get there, best I can do is 160. 1800 position 26.57N 78.47W. Speed up to 4.5 knots. Heading 150. We are 8 miles from Mangrove Cay, bearing 105 degrees. Time to motorsail. Sigh. Sailed 24 miles, made 13 mi. E but needed 8 more. Arrived Mangrove Cay at 9 p.m. Bright moonlit night. No sound but me and a couple birds. Very difficult to make out the island as it lies so low. Next day's plan is to head to the Grand Cays, 20 nm more or less N from here. Hoping to get some better sailing in.

[Carl Thunberg]

I saw your post on FB, too. Thanks for posting it here, where there is more opportunity for more detailed log posting like this. Enjoy your time there. Those of us with small boats admire what you are doing.

[FarrellTed]

9 February 2025. Up with the sun around 0700. No wonder it was so hard to see Mangrove Cay last night--it's barely above the water. There was a nice light breeze from the SE, so I hauled up sails and anchor & sailed off the mooring. Heading toward the Grand Cays, about 21 nm NE of Mangrove.
Had a beautiful couple hours sailing in the incredible waters of the little Bahama Bank, soon out of sight of land and any other boats. It's a bit disturbing that Garmin's chartplotter does not have any of the cays NE of Great Sale Cay and Spanish Cay, but the GPS of course helps. I have the Explorer paper charts, which are very detailed. By 0945, the wind had completely died, Force 000. Had to haul in the sails and start motoring. 1000, scared up some flying fish. These are not the ones with wings, like in the Pacific; their lower tail fin is really long and stays in the water while the rest of the fish is in the air. Wonder how they do that. Sort of the same principle as windfoiling, I guess. 1123, Land Ho! Actually Triangle Rocks, a few miles S of the Grand Cays. 1143, Dolphins! A small pod of 4 dolphins announced their presence by porpoising toward me from behind. They quickly caught up (I was doing about 5 knots) and two of them started playing in the bow wave. Just a magical experience to have that happen on your own boat. I've seen porpoises riding the bow wave of the Robert W Seamans while riding on the bowsprit, but that is a 125 foot ship. Riding on the pulpit of a Cape Dory 22 puts you a little closer! Unfortunately the bow wave of a 22 doesn't offer a whole lot to interest the porpoises, they left after only about 5 minutes. Still, great fun. After the dolphins left, the water got extremely shallow (were they warning me?), so I had to pay close attention to the channel around Triangle Rocks. Around 1215, a nice breeze sprung up, so I sailed for about an hour. The breeze died after an hour, so it was back to motoring. Arrived at Rosie's Place, Little Grand Cay, around 1500. Some nice fishermen gave me a couple filets of yellow-eye snapper, which I fried up with some salt & pepper. Served with canned corn, kidney beans, and tortillas, it was a pretty good meal.

10 February 2025. The plan was to take my time along the cays between Grand and Spanish Cay, but rumors of a hard blow from the South made me reconsider. So today, with no wind, the plan is to motor 53 miles to Spanish Cay, the first harbor with any facilities towards the Abacos. Not ideal, but it would be worse to get stuck out with no facilities or secure harbors if it gets really lively. Other than getting stuck on Carter's Bank for a couple hours due to a super-low tide, there wasn't anything remarkable about motoring all day. The water is beautiful, the cays are empty, there are no houses, no boats. You can see the bottom everywhere, but it is deceptive because the water is so clear. Arrived at Spanish Cay around 9 pm.

11 February 2025. Spent the day at Spanish Cay. A beautiful island, originally a resort for wealthy folks in the 1950s, clearly a landscape architect paid attention to winding the roads and planting beautiful trees in all the right spots. Now it's kind of empty, I think there were 3 boats and 1 party of guests at the resort while I was there. People were very nice.

12 February 2025. Left Spanish Cay at 0930. Destination Nunjack Cay, 12 nm S and E of Spanish. With a brisk southerly breeze of about 12-15 knots, I put a reef in the main before heading out. Wow the CD 22 *loves* a 12-14 knot breeze. Total of 6 legs to make the 12 miles: 3 short tacks (about 2 nm) directly across to Great Abaco on port tack; three longer tacks nearly parallel to the Great Abaco coast, trending toward the cays; each of these was about 4 miles. Great sailing--fast, lively, fun. The boat stayed pretty level due to the reef in the main, though I dipped the rail a couple times, just for fun. Speed was 4.8 to 5.3 knots, but at one point in a particularly flat stretch of water the GPS said I was doing 6.04 knots. Must be a current. On the 6th tack I made it to the anchorage between Nunjack and Crab Cays. Arrived 1330, so 18 nm of sailing in 4 hours. Sailed around the anchorage and picked a sandy spot to anchor. 8 feet of water with 50 feet of scope. Dove on the anchor to see it was properly set--I'm not overly confident in my anchoring skills. I have 12 feet of chain & about 150 feet of nylon rode. Noticed the end of the chain bobbing up & down, so put out a few more feet of line. Saw a 4 foot long barracuda on my way back to the boat. It was the fattest barracuda I have ever seen in my life. Life must be good here, if you're a barracuda.