On April 28th at 5:30 pm we departed French Cay for a downwind, overnight sail to Acklins Island in the Bahamas. The high ESE winds we had experienced anchored at French Cay, TCI had abated by departure, and continued to lessen overnight, so this was a slower passage.

Why depart at 5:30 pm, just a couple of hours before dark, you ask? Departure times are not impulse decisions: passage planning is quite simple and only requires knowing how far you want to go and how fast or slow you expect to go to get there. Daylight arrivals are preferred – especially for unfamiliar destinations – so it's simple arithmetic to calculate estimated passage time and backing up from your preferred arrival time to get the required departure time.

The hard part is predicting the weather and how fast or slow the boat will perform in differing wind strengths and directions. In remote areas we get our weather information via SSB radio – either voice or text downloads – and make boat speed predictions on our past experience. We usually "aim" to arrive at a destination within a few hours either side of mid-day which is quite easy for short to moderate distances. As passage lengths increase, transit times are less and less predictable due to weather variables. For multi-day passages we depart at advantageous times and start finessing boat speed as needed during the final 24 hours in order to achieve daylight arrivals. It’s usually easier to slow down than speed up, which is preferable to arriving too early and having to stand off a destination waiting for daylight.  

On the way to Acklins a noteworthy event occurred around midnight on Dave’s watch. Our AIS (automatic identification system) revealed a distant ship on a collision course with us. This is a routine occurrence on passage and collisions are exactly what AIS is intended to help prevent. The AIS shows the location, name, course, and speed of the ship on our chart plotter – often before visual contact can be made. AIS also calculates the CPA – closest point of approach-- and TCPA – time to closest point of approach-- so determining whether a collision potential exists is very easy to do when only one ship is involved. (In heavily trafficked areas multiple, moving AIS “targets” will be displayed and the chart plotter resembles a video game – but with real consequences.)

Normally for us, when AIS indicates a potential collision, we attempt to contact the “target” via radio to make sure they similarly see us on their AIS and to determine if they intend any near term course or speed changes. Then we usually make avoidance maneuvers or course changes as needed to keep clear. However, we may not get any radio response and, even when we do make contact, ships are reluctant to change course or speed for a “little boat”. More typically, to be in control our own safety, we make the necessary maneuvers. But on this occasion, just as Dave was preparing to hail the ship on the radio, it changed course to pass astern of us, eliminating the collision potential. We appreciated the courtesy and love our AIS.

For this passage winds were 10-15 kts from the ESE and SE, less than expected, resulting in a slower than expected passage. We arrived at an anchorage near Salina Point, Acklins Island at 4:14 pm on April 29th. On our approach we were met by a large pod of dolphins that played about us. We anchored in some nice, deep, soft sand near some isolated coral heads. No anchoring compromises here—ah, to be back in the Bahamas with all of its wonderful deep sand beneath us! Again, no other boats anywhere, but also again, no fish on the crossing.

We enjoyed this anchorage for a couple days while waiting for a shift in the weather before continuing on through the Bahamas. Each day we snorkeled the patch reefs that were all within swimming distance from the stern of the boat and could best be described as “teeming with fish”—delightful!