Crossing Lake Worth to West End or Green Turtle

[Magnawake]

Moot point now. I'm throwing the towel in. The weather is too bad for me to cross. Maybe if I had a large sail boat I would go but not with this top heavy MY. I moved to Mariners Cay Marina in Manatee pocket (port Salerno), near Staurt for a change of scenery and chill by their nice pool. I'm beat down from doing all these maint things and getting ready to cross and getting my hopes up.

[bratzcpa]

We did this crossing last year on May 15th. We left from Fort Lauderdale (because it was a little further south) to West End. LOTS of east wind that day so ended up pretty far north of West End.

We left in the dark and arrived in the dark - - a long trip.

At West End, the place you go is Old Bahama Bay. EASY entrance. Well lit (red and green) markers at the entrance. plenty of depth. nice docks to tie up, but EXPENSIVE. They charged us $95 for a few hours (2am to 9am). This was not-negotiable.

When we left West End (headed for Mangrove Cay and Great Sale), we were cautioned about the channel that leaves directly from West End, so we went way up north to Memory Rock and then East onto the banks. On the way out, we took the shortcut channel and it was fine. Plenty of depth. No problem at all. Also a series of tall stakes/poles mark the channel too.

[AnchorageGuy]

Tony, We have only heard of one incident where the BDF turned a boat back and after speaking to the head of the BDF on the phone, he indicated that while the law states you must check in at the nearest port when entering Bahamian waters, it was not his policy to chase pleasure boats down and turn them around. As with all things in the Bahamas, policies can change daily. You can cross over and sail on to Mangrove or Great Sale Cay to rest up before moving on to GT. The channel near west end has plenty of water and is easy to do in daylight. If you leave early enough, you want to enter the channel at about mid day. Leaving from Lake Worth in the dark is easy. The winds and seas are generally up a bit in the early morning hours so may not be an indicator of what you will have later on. The seas are also a bit more sloppy close to the coast. As you move offshore and into they stream the tend to spread out. Even if they are a bit high, look for the intervals to be longer and it shouldn't be an issue. One of our best sails was between the Turks and Caicos to the DR with 8 foot seas with long intervals. Our 40 foot ketch was like a giant surfboard but a fast run and lots of fun. Just be careful and respect that Gulf Stream. Don't get impatient. Have a great trip. Chuck