Kendall
Member
- Feb 3, 2009
- 369
- Boat Info
- 2006 260DA
"WET BAR"
Generator
Tow Vehicle:
2006 F-350 Dually 4X4 Diesel
- Engines
- 350 MAG w/Bravo III
Hi Guys:
Long report.....
I thought this report might be interesting reading for those making the Abacos run for the first time. We made the trip to Bimini last year from FLL which was pretty eventful (search on this site) so we figured we would push our luck this year and try for the Abacos via West Palm to West End Bahamas then around Mangrove Cay to South of Great Sale and into the Sea of Abaco. 1st day destination Green Turtle Cay....total mileage ~ 175 miles. Fuel capacity 82 gal stopping in West End for customs clearance and fuel. Spares on boat, two buddies, fishing gear, Yeti on the back, ready to go.
Day 1:
Up at 5:30 am trailer hooked up and towing by 6:30 am from Fort Mill, SC to West Palm Beach. Boat 2006 Sea Ray 260 Sundancer, Tow vehicle 2006 F-350 Diesel dually.
Arrive West Palm Beach around 4:30 pm. Launch the boat at Lake Park Marina (very nice by the way). Park the truck and trailer in their lot ($25/night)...leave the money in the slot. Had called ahead so we went to our slip, plugged in the power and turned on the air. Buddies headed to Winn Dixie (across the street) for provisions and ice while I pumped up the dingy and mounted it to the bow of the 260. Checked the weather again and it looked like the winds would be on our back (from the West) on the way over.
Day 2:
Up at 6:00 am and idling out of the marina towards Lake Worth Marker.....went the long way around Peanut Island as I did not see the passage around the sand bar on the left. Winds 6 - 10 knots from the West. Up on plane out of the jetties and off to West End. Seas 3' but not in our face this time. All excited, tabs down, bravo III trimed in the middle. Water got rougher as we approached West End, took some spray in the face...arrived West End 9:00 am. Customs guy met us at the boat and led us to the office. Very nice guy and then we fueled up held 40 gallons ~ 1.55 mpg.
Out of West End at 10:00 am and we get a little mixed up trying to find the IND1 waypoint and marker. Finally find it and we are on the bank. Bank is much rougher than I had planned...winds still on our back but 10 -15 knots and tall steep waves making for a bumpier ride but we are on their back side. Make it through the Indian Cay passage and around Mangrove Cay. Proceed on to South of Great Sale still slogging bumpy ride. Get halfway between Great Sale marker and Veteran Rock and we see a huge thunderstorm up ahead about 10 miles with lightening so we stop. Anchored on the bank in 10' of water for about an hour while the South West winds pushed the storm off. Had a sandwich and a soda and we were off again. Once around Veteran Rock the winds were blocked and the ride was glass. My buddies feel asleep and I cruised the last few waypoints to GTC with Kenny playing some boat songs....water was beautiful!
Come into Green Turtle Cay and hail Green Turtle Club on the radio...super nice people. Fill up with fuel before docking and we hold 69.5 gallons at $454.00 (1.62 mpg). Wash the boat off and walk over to the office to check things out. Nice place. Have dinner and drinks on the screen porch and meet a guy named Chris who is a captain on a 55' Hatteras docked beside us. We discuss the topic of displacement or our lack there of and how this affects ride in rough water....all had a good laugh about my 8000 lb displacement versus his 55,000 lbs.
I'm exhausted from pilot duties so I crash at 10 pm...buddies stay up to watch the Gulley Roosters...excellent they said. Also spotted Taylor Hicks at the club.
Day 3:
Up at 6:30 am leave the dock around 8:00 am as we are in no rush as we only have to be in Marsh Harbour around 12:00 to see our friends leaving with their chartered 42 Lagoon sail cat. We do some fishing around Fish Cay and arrive in Marsh Harbour around 11:00 am. Park at Snappas' and have a few drinks. I spot my neighbors and head over....the cat is huge inside compared to our accomadations. On the way back I see a streetside conch salad vendor and pick up some....he talks me into trying a spoon full of his AK sauce which sets my mouth on fire...turns out AK stands for A$$ kicking sauce....
We watch our friends leave out of MHH and also keep an eye on a large thunderstorm building in the West with winds pushing it our way. We finally leave to head over to MOW Cay and by now the wind is up to 20 knots from the South West and the tranquil little sea is a white capping mess. We run over to MOW inlet entrance and I can't believe this is an entrance to anything! It can't be more than 50' wide and the surf is breaking all in the entrance....I come charging in and take an immediate turn to Port and head for a dock as the wind is really kicking now. We find dock space at Albury's Grocery store and my buddies run in to buy ponchos.... Rain rages for an hour and we get a good fresh water washing. we watch our friends with the cat trying to hook a mooring ball with the wind still kicking...was quite amusing.
The storm finally passes but we are left with a cloudy light rain day. We head over to our buddies and tie up to them. Grill is fired up and we all proceed to have a good time. Around 5:00 my buddies are dying to go out past the reef and troll for blackfin. We head out the North passage and have some large well spaced rollers. We troll for a couple of hours, see plenty of birds and flying fish all around us but no takers. We head back in, tie up to our buddies and fire up the generator for some AC. MOW is a well protected (no rollers) anchorage and we sleep well.
Day 4:
We are up and underway to go fishing again by 6:30 am. Head out on our same passage and fish in about 250' of water. We troll North along the outside of MOW and come back in at the Southern passage making a stop to fish the wreck in 105' of water. We only catch one Barracuda.
We anchor beside our cat buddies on the inside of Fowl Cay and dingy asshore. What a nice place....sanddollars in the sand, beautiful reef with large grouper hanging out on the ocean side of the island. Awesome snorkeling. We have a sandwich....first real food all day... We then head out to Great Guana for some well needed dockage with showers etc. We arrive at Orchid Bay and are really surprised by the beautiful marina. We get a slip and immediately are met by Karen who is just great and fills us in on all the cool things to do on the island. Karen does not work for Orchid bay but she and her husband are there often.
We see another storm brewing so we get all the canvas up and settle in for the storm. Our buddies arrive and take a mooring ball in the anchorage. The rain comes and goes but we get showered up and have a few drinks at the bar. Awesome view of the Abaco Sea from the deck. My buddies head over to meet the cat guys and head up to Nippers. I pick up a buddies wife and we head to Marsh Harbour to pick up her husband and my wife who are flying in. The water is smooth and we make good time. We wait at Snappas' as they are around an hour late due to the storm arriving from Nassau. We zoom back over on the red chart plotter line and get docked up as it is now dark but the weather is clearing.
We see Karen and she says our guys are up at Nippers getting a little rowdy....she then gives us a ride on her golf cart! What a lady! We get there and the party has moved to Pirates?....a shack beside the water. This is a good party...many people there. We make it back to the boat by 1:00 am. The boat is now rolling as the winds have shifted and we have some good rollers coming into the marina....this was my only complaint about Orchid Bay....everything else that they can control was excellent.
Day 5:
We awake to our buddies moving around getting ready for Ricky Sands to take them to the fish. The water is rough and the winds are really nasty out of the West at 20 - 25 knots...pushing breakers onto the rocks. The weather calms a little and the guys head out around 9:00 am. The wife and I tour Great Guana and have a blast as the sun pops out and we check out Nippers and Grabbers. We talk to Karen about the winds and how to get out of the anchorage to head to GTC later. GTC is to be our jump off point to head back to West End early Sunday morning. My guys finally get back and have caught 4 small black fin but we are happy to have something to eat. It is now 4:00 in the afternoon and the wind is humming.....25 knots continuous out of the Northwest. I know that as soon as my dock lines are untied we will slam into the other posts on our port side. We devise a plan to have helpers hold us while I gun it out of the dockage. We do this but I have to turn to port to keep the boat from hitting the last piling on the port aft...I back out of the anchorage get turned around and we slosh it out to Whale Cay passage and then up to GTC....this is as rough a ride as I have had in the 260...the canvas gets blown off the snaps on the front windshield and is held in place by the zippers. I get a good salt water wash down and cuss myself for being stupid enough to leave the dock in these conditions.
We arrive at Green Turtle Club for the second time at 6:30 pm. Get fuel again and settle in beside our friends. We have a sit down dinner in the club that night and it is wonderful. Took a golf cart ride over to Pineapples but it is closed. Asleep on the boat by 11:30 pm.
Day 6: Going back day...
Up at 6:00 am and just as I thought we need to wait one more day as the winds are still breazy out of the Northwest. One buddy has decided to take a flight out of Treasure to WPB and then home but the other needs to get home for work and is riding with me.....the winds and seas don't understand his urgency...
We leave out at 6:30 and the water is nice as the wind is somewhat blocked and not above 10 knots yet. We round the corner at Crab Cay and she starts getting bumpy...winds in our face and hard steep 2-3 footers in the shallow water maybe 3s apart. My boat can only go so slow so we start to take a good beating by Hawksbill. We continue this beating until we round Mangrove Cay and can ride the waves in a quartering sea and not take on these waves head on. As I relax coming into Indian Cay passage I'm surprised to see white water just past the last waypoint before entering the deep water. It takes me a minute to realize these are standing waves from the water rushing off the bank at the falling tide and meeting this wind and ocean like class 5 rapids! We see some much larger boats standing off the area but we are too stupid to know why. We tighten down our jackets put the bow high in the air and slowly plow through the rapids. We pop out on the other side happy to be floating.
We round the corner and pop into West End with the big boats still considering the passage. We get fuel (70 gallons) and stop to talk to a few people about our beating and the beating they just recieved coming from Lake Worth. A nice guy on a Contender with his family says it is doable as he had to slog through 10 miles of the gulf or so but the Florida side was nice. One guy said that he watched two trawlers leave and they came back. Another group on a sail boat said they had a good passage. At this point the winds were from the Northwest at 15 knots but supposed to calm. We decide to stick our noses out....she is rough but with tabs down and trim down I am able to stay on plane at 20 mph....the wave action is just at the angle I can quarter to Starboard and not take on the wind and surf straight in my face. We take a beating. It is all I can do to keep the 260 from smacking down on the next wave as one lifts us. I would say the waves were 4' with occasional 6's but they were white capping....period 4s NW winds. We enter the stream and the waves are big but like a washing machine...all different directions. As we get closer to West Palm the waves are getting really big but spaced further apart. We are actually surfing down the front sides as they have turned mostly from the North. There was no relief until we are 0.5 mile from the Lake Worth Jetties.
We come gliding into the inlet covered in salt water...I can't even read my gauges for the dried salt.... We take a quick fresh water rinse from the back shower and a deep breath. As we round the corner to head North we see boaters paradise....there must have been 100's of boats beached on the sand bar and having a great time. Why the hell did we leave??
9 hours of holding on with my right arm and steering with my left and my muscles are cramping. We then load up the boat on the trailer, call/visit customs and head towards home.
Get to Savannah and we are beat. Motel room for the night and home by 10:00 am Monday morning.
Last comment:
I promissed my boat that if she got us to Lake Worth I would wash her really good, wax her, flush all systems and stick her back on her lift on Lake Wylie never to be an ocean boat again....I'm keeping my promise.
Anybody got a 55' Hatteras for sale?
Long report.....
I thought this report might be interesting reading for those making the Abacos run for the first time. We made the trip to Bimini last year from FLL which was pretty eventful (search on this site) so we figured we would push our luck this year and try for the Abacos via West Palm to West End Bahamas then around Mangrove Cay to South of Great Sale and into the Sea of Abaco. 1st day destination Green Turtle Cay....total mileage ~ 175 miles. Fuel capacity 82 gal stopping in West End for customs clearance and fuel. Spares on boat, two buddies, fishing gear, Yeti on the back, ready to go.
Day 1:
Up at 5:30 am trailer hooked up and towing by 6:30 am from Fort Mill, SC to West Palm Beach. Boat 2006 Sea Ray 260 Sundancer, Tow vehicle 2006 F-350 Diesel dually.
Arrive West Palm Beach around 4:30 pm. Launch the boat at Lake Park Marina (very nice by the way). Park the truck and trailer in their lot ($25/night)...leave the money in the slot. Had called ahead so we went to our slip, plugged in the power and turned on the air. Buddies headed to Winn Dixie (across the street) for provisions and ice while I pumped up the dingy and mounted it to the bow of the 260. Checked the weather again and it looked like the winds would be on our back (from the West) on the way over.
Day 2:
Up at 6:00 am and idling out of the marina towards Lake Worth Marker.....went the long way around Peanut Island as I did not see the passage around the sand bar on the left. Winds 6 - 10 knots from the West. Up on plane out of the jetties and off to West End. Seas 3' but not in our face this time. All excited, tabs down, bravo III trimed in the middle. Water got rougher as we approached West End, took some spray in the face...arrived West End 9:00 am. Customs guy met us at the boat and led us to the office. Very nice guy and then we fueled up held 40 gallons ~ 1.55 mpg.
Out of West End at 10:00 am and we get a little mixed up trying to find the IND1 waypoint and marker. Finally find it and we are on the bank. Bank is much rougher than I had planned...winds still on our back but 10 -15 knots and tall steep waves making for a bumpier ride but we are on their back side. Make it through the Indian Cay passage and around Mangrove Cay. Proceed on to South of Great Sale still slogging bumpy ride. Get halfway between Great Sale marker and Veteran Rock and we see a huge thunderstorm up ahead about 10 miles with lightening so we stop. Anchored on the bank in 10' of water for about an hour while the South West winds pushed the storm off. Had a sandwich and a soda and we were off again. Once around Veteran Rock the winds were blocked and the ride was glass. My buddies feel asleep and I cruised the last few waypoints to GTC with Kenny playing some boat songs....water was beautiful!
Come into Green Turtle Cay and hail Green Turtle Club on the radio...super nice people. Fill up with fuel before docking and we hold 69.5 gallons at $454.00 (1.62 mpg). Wash the boat off and walk over to the office to check things out. Nice place. Have dinner and drinks on the screen porch and meet a guy named Chris who is a captain on a 55' Hatteras docked beside us. We discuss the topic of displacement or our lack there of and how this affects ride in rough water....all had a good laugh about my 8000 lb displacement versus his 55,000 lbs.
I'm exhausted from pilot duties so I crash at 10 pm...buddies stay up to watch the Gulley Roosters...excellent they said. Also spotted Taylor Hicks at the club.
Day 3:
Up at 6:30 am leave the dock around 8:00 am as we are in no rush as we only have to be in Marsh Harbour around 12:00 to see our friends leaving with their chartered 42 Lagoon sail cat. We do some fishing around Fish Cay and arrive in Marsh Harbour around 11:00 am. Park at Snappas' and have a few drinks. I spot my neighbors and head over....the cat is huge inside compared to our accomadations. On the way back I see a streetside conch salad vendor and pick up some....he talks me into trying a spoon full of his AK sauce which sets my mouth on fire...turns out AK stands for A$$ kicking sauce....
We watch our friends leave out of MHH and also keep an eye on a large thunderstorm building in the West with winds pushing it our way. We finally leave to head over to MOW Cay and by now the wind is up to 20 knots from the South West and the tranquil little sea is a white capping mess. We run over to MOW inlet entrance and I can't believe this is an entrance to anything! It can't be more than 50' wide and the surf is breaking all in the entrance....I come charging in and take an immediate turn to Port and head for a dock as the wind is really kicking now. We find dock space at Albury's Grocery store and my buddies run in to buy ponchos.... Rain rages for an hour and we get a good fresh water washing. we watch our friends with the cat trying to hook a mooring ball with the wind still kicking...was quite amusing.
The storm finally passes but we are left with a cloudy light rain day. We head over to our buddies and tie up to them. Grill is fired up and we all proceed to have a good time. Around 5:00 my buddies are dying to go out past the reef and troll for blackfin. We head out the North passage and have some large well spaced rollers. We troll for a couple of hours, see plenty of birds and flying fish all around us but no takers. We head back in, tie up to our buddies and fire up the generator for some AC. MOW is a well protected (no rollers) anchorage and we sleep well.
Day 4:
We are up and underway to go fishing again by 6:30 am. Head out on our same passage and fish in about 250' of water. We troll North along the outside of MOW and come back in at the Southern passage making a stop to fish the wreck in 105' of water. We only catch one Barracuda.
We anchor beside our cat buddies on the inside of Fowl Cay and dingy asshore. What a nice place....sanddollars in the sand, beautiful reef with large grouper hanging out on the ocean side of the island. Awesome snorkeling. We have a sandwich....first real food all day... We then head out to Great Guana for some well needed dockage with showers etc. We arrive at Orchid Bay and are really surprised by the beautiful marina. We get a slip and immediately are met by Karen who is just great and fills us in on all the cool things to do on the island. Karen does not work for Orchid bay but she and her husband are there often.
We see another storm brewing so we get all the canvas up and settle in for the storm. Our buddies arrive and take a mooring ball in the anchorage. The rain comes and goes but we get showered up and have a few drinks at the bar. Awesome view of the Abaco Sea from the deck. My buddies head over to meet the cat guys and head up to Nippers. I pick up a buddies wife and we head to Marsh Harbour to pick up her husband and my wife who are flying in. The water is smooth and we make good time. We wait at Snappas' as they are around an hour late due to the storm arriving from Nassau. We zoom back over on the red chart plotter line and get docked up as it is now dark but the weather is clearing.
We see Karen and she says our guys are up at Nippers getting a little rowdy....she then gives us a ride on her golf cart! What a lady! We get there and the party has moved to Pirates?....a shack beside the water. This is a good party...many people there. We make it back to the boat by 1:00 am. The boat is now rolling as the winds have shifted and we have some good rollers coming into the marina....this was my only complaint about Orchid Bay....everything else that they can control was excellent.
Day 5:
We awake to our buddies moving around getting ready for Ricky Sands to take them to the fish. The water is rough and the winds are really nasty out of the West at 20 - 25 knots...pushing breakers onto the rocks. The weather calms a little and the guys head out around 9:00 am. The wife and I tour Great Guana and have a blast as the sun pops out and we check out Nippers and Grabbers. We talk to Karen about the winds and how to get out of the anchorage to head to GTC later. GTC is to be our jump off point to head back to West End early Sunday morning. My guys finally get back and have caught 4 small black fin but we are happy to have something to eat. It is now 4:00 in the afternoon and the wind is humming.....25 knots continuous out of the Northwest. I know that as soon as my dock lines are untied we will slam into the other posts on our port side. We devise a plan to have helpers hold us while I gun it out of the dockage. We do this but I have to turn to port to keep the boat from hitting the last piling on the port aft...I back out of the anchorage get turned around and we slosh it out to Whale Cay passage and then up to GTC....this is as rough a ride as I have had in the 260...the canvas gets blown off the snaps on the front windshield and is held in place by the zippers. I get a good salt water wash down and cuss myself for being stupid enough to leave the dock in these conditions.
We arrive at Green Turtle Club for the second time at 6:30 pm. Get fuel again and settle in beside our friends. We have a sit down dinner in the club that night and it is wonderful. Took a golf cart ride over to Pineapples but it is closed. Asleep on the boat by 11:30 pm.
Day 6: Going back day...
Up at 6:00 am and just as I thought we need to wait one more day as the winds are still breazy out of the Northwest. One buddy has decided to take a flight out of Treasure to WPB and then home but the other needs to get home for work and is riding with me.....the winds and seas don't understand his urgency...
We leave out at 6:30 and the water is nice as the wind is somewhat blocked and not above 10 knots yet. We round the corner at Crab Cay and she starts getting bumpy...winds in our face and hard steep 2-3 footers in the shallow water maybe 3s apart. My boat can only go so slow so we start to take a good beating by Hawksbill. We continue this beating until we round Mangrove Cay and can ride the waves in a quartering sea and not take on these waves head on. As I relax coming into Indian Cay passage I'm surprised to see white water just past the last waypoint before entering the deep water. It takes me a minute to realize these are standing waves from the water rushing off the bank at the falling tide and meeting this wind and ocean like class 5 rapids! We see some much larger boats standing off the area but we are too stupid to know why. We tighten down our jackets put the bow high in the air and slowly plow through the rapids. We pop out on the other side happy to be floating.
We round the corner and pop into West End with the big boats still considering the passage. We get fuel (70 gallons) and stop to talk to a few people about our beating and the beating they just recieved coming from Lake Worth. A nice guy on a Contender with his family says it is doable as he had to slog through 10 miles of the gulf or so but the Florida side was nice. One guy said that he watched two trawlers leave and they came back. Another group on a sail boat said they had a good passage. At this point the winds were from the Northwest at 15 knots but supposed to calm. We decide to stick our noses out....she is rough but with tabs down and trim down I am able to stay on plane at 20 mph....the wave action is just at the angle I can quarter to Starboard and not take on the wind and surf straight in my face. We take a beating. It is all I can do to keep the 260 from smacking down on the next wave as one lifts us. I would say the waves were 4' with occasional 6's but they were white capping....period 4s NW winds. We enter the stream and the waves are big but like a washing machine...all different directions. As we get closer to West Palm the waves are getting really big but spaced further apart. We are actually surfing down the front sides as they have turned mostly from the North. There was no relief until we are 0.5 mile from the Lake Worth Jetties.
We come gliding into the inlet covered in salt water...I can't even read my gauges for the dried salt.... We take a quick fresh water rinse from the back shower and a deep breath. As we round the corner to head North we see boaters paradise....there must have been 100's of boats beached on the sand bar and having a great time. Why the hell did we leave??
9 hours of holding on with my right arm and steering with my left and my muscles are cramping. We then load up the boat on the trailer, call/visit customs and head towards home.
Get to Savannah and we are beat. Motel room for the night and home by 10:00 am Monday morning.
Last comment:
I promissed my boat that if she got us to Lake Worth I would wash her really good, wax her, flush all systems and stick her back on her lift on Lake Wylie never to be an ocean boat again....I'm keeping my promise.
Anybody got a 55' Hatteras for sale?
