Forty minutes later, 19 of them lifted their anchors and departed.
We would have been offended if we hadn’t previously listened to their impromptu cruising net. A couple of the boats realized that most of the boats had listened to Chris Parker, the cruising weather guru, and therefore had essentially the same game plan. Some organization was needed. They quickly did a role call to find who was going where and in what timeframe. The 19 boats were headed for the Ft Pierce, FL inlet, and wanted to get there during high tide.
From Great Sale Cay to the Ft Pierce inlet is about 115 NM on an approximately a 290 heading. Their plan was to cross the Little Bahama Bank on a 270 heading until they hit deep water, then turn north towards Ft Pierce and get the maximum push from the Gulf Stream in the Strait of Florida. In their impromptu net they coordinated future weather updates and communication protocol. All of this was very impressive, but I hope they did not encourage any cruisers to attempt something above their competency, i.e., a night crossing of the Gulf Stream.
Serenity travels during day light hours and only will attempt a night passage when there are no other options. We watched them all leave, and then had sunset services complete with Pollie blowing her conch horn.
The next day we departed early for the West End, where we again stopped for the night. I once asked a professional captain about night passages in the Bahamas. He responded by saying there are only two kinds of people who boat at night in the Bahamas, fools and drug runners.
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