1st trip to the Bahamas

We are headed to Eluethera in August from Miami. I have electronic and paper charts up the wazoo, but some experienced voyagers information will help. We draw 5'7" and want to be sure our routing is deep enough. SUGGESTIONS.

That is an interesting first Bahamas cruise.

I can certainly give some input, but first; why did you chose Eleuthera? And what is your planned route?

Eleuthera because we were able to rent a very nice house for our family.

Miami thru Cat Cay Cut then south of Mackie Bank and thru to Northwest Channel. South of Chub and thru Fleming Channel. Thoughts?

I draw five feet and have never had a problem running across the banks to Chub, from there it’s pretty easy.

Thanks for the reply. We have a 53’ Selene with just shy of 6’ draft.

Going across the banks will scare you the first time, water is so clear everything looks closer to the surface, you’ll get use to it.

That's why old time sailors drank so much rum....limited both their vision and fear.

Scott

We still do. . When your passed out on the deck everything seems fine.

Bigsfish said:

Scott

We still do. . When your passed out on the deck everything seems fine.

Click to expand...

It's such a pretty sky, lay back and enjoy....if you can keep your eyes open.

Ah, so we differ. I’m usually enjoying a closeup of the deck, enjoying how the dirt keeps going round and round.

We are on the return route from our first trip. 56’ & 5’10”. Stiltsville-Bimini-New Providence and then hopped down the Exumas to Georgetown. Returned from Bimini to Miami-Keys-Ft Meyers-Tampa. Will cross to Appalachicola in a few days. We spent most of the time at anchor with some marina days for maintenance. Draft is a consideration but we always found routes and anchorages that worked.

Our boat is slow so laying Cat Key from Government Cut would have been more counter-current than we wanted. Direct from Cat Key had more too many soundings <2 meters for our level of cowardly cruisers so we crossed the GB Bank from North Rock. Explorer charts (books & electronic) were very good. Navionic’s soundings typically showed less depth than reality and would have precluded many of our routes.

We did not visit Eleuthera but would have routed to New Providence and then inside the bank to limit time in the Providence Channel.