Observations from my trip to the Bahamas

Just got back from a nice trip to the Bahamas and a thought I would share some of my observations. Diesel was about $5/gallon and by and large readily available. Gas was a different story. Saw a lot of smaller outboard boats that made it over there on their own bottoms. I wonder if the marinas over there have based their tank sizes on supplying mostly diesel and the proliferation of outboard boats has put a strain on their ability to supply gas to the outboard boats. Stopped at Chubb and it is really nice now and a worthy stop. In the past I didn’t think it was that great and was only a convenience stop. Might be a destination stop now.

Things were very busy over there. At Harbor Island needed advance reservations for restaurants and even slip space. Staniel was very busy as well. Georgetown was not that busy. But that was my first time there so I might not have a great frame of reference. The Bahamians need the economic activity. When talking to them I think Dorian and Covid was a hell of a economic shot for them. By and large they seemed to be very appreciative of the business. I have not traveled much abroad but I keep hearing about the ugly American traveler stigma. I didn’t get the feeling that the Bahamians that I spoke to felt that way at all.

A whole lot of 80+ footers. It amazes me how much wealth there is out there. Don’t know if we are in another roaring twenties era with a big drop coming but right now there seems to be a lot of money being spent. Hopefully this is sustainable.

Heard a fair amount of comments about how aberrant the weather was for this time of year. I was hoping for light winds but did not get them. We had to alter our schedule for the weather. I had days built in for that but thought I wouldn’t need them. I did. Spoke to a dockhand at Spanish Wells and he said that he was told that haziness that he was seeing was due to Saharan dust. I found that interesting as I didn’t think that Saharan dust would be visible to the eye. I don’t know if he is right or not.

Bahamian customs at West End said I had to do their form online. If it wasn’t for a very nice and patient young customs agent I would have really struggled. But still yet took me about 45 minutes mostly due to learning how the website worked. Not very intuitive to me. Then cleared back in the States and they wanted it done online. That site was easier and I got it done. American customs agent was an absolute jerk. I did not know that the LBO program had gone online. It wasn’t in 2019.

Had a MMSI distress alert on my VHF and chart plotters. Took me a bit to figure out how to access all the info. Ended up he was about 60 miles away from me. So I called the US Coast Guard Miami and they were not very concerned and recommend I call the Bahamian National Defense Force. Which I did. They took the info and said they were going to pursue it. I thought the USCG searched outside of US waters but I guess not. So it appears that MMSI communicates ship to ship as both the CG and the BNDF said they had no idea about the alert.

I PMed Pascal about Elsa tactics and as always he was generous with his advice. Thanks again.

In closing, the Bahamas is a unique and special place to visit by boat. My daughter and her husband joined us for 10 days and the boat did what it has always done and that is make some more great memories. The boat will frustrate me at times and is an expensive hobby but I still find the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.