Salty Podcast #42 | Navigating Bahamas with Sailing Veterans!⛵Learn from the Best!

Ever dreamt of navigating the Bahamas like a seasoned pro? Join us on the Salty Podcast as we unlock the secrets of the Bahamian seas with expert sailors Hayden and Raydeen from Sailing Vessel Island Spirit. This episode promises a wealth of insider knowledge, from provisioning tips in Miami to the mesmerizing color shifts of the ocean as you sail into the Bahamas' West End Bank. Hayden and Raydeen bring their extensive experience to the fore, guiding you through the Abacos, with its inviting islands like Great Sail Key and Green Turtle Key, where vibrant marina life and local gems await.

As we chart the course through the Sea of Abaco, discover the best times to set sail and how to maneuver the seasonal winds for an unforgettable adventure. Learn from Hayden and Raydeen's insights on strategic navigation, heading to the Exumas to dodge northern weather fronts, and timing your travels from the East Coast for the perfect journey. The thrill of exploring Thunderball Grotto, the charm of Black Point, and the utility of tried-and-tested navigational tools like Navionics and Explorer chart books are all part of this comprehensive exploration.

Concluding our voyage, we immerse ourselves in the exceptional beauty of the Exumas. Embark on a tour of iconic spots such as Shroud Key, Wardrick Wells, and Staniel Key, where playful pigs and stunning landscapes await. We touch on the challenges of provisioning for the Bahamas compared to the Caribbean, highlighting the pleasures and intricacies of sailing these unique waters. From the bustling yacht clubs of Georgetown to the serene cuts of the Exumas, this episode is a treasure trove of knowledge for anyone setting their sails towards the Bahamas.

Transcript

Capn Tinsley 0:01

Welcome back to the Salty Podcast, where it's always a great day to talk about sailing. This is episode 42. Before we begin, please smash that like button, subscribe and feel free to comment in the live chat on YouTube or Facebook. In tonight's episode, I'm excited to welcome back for the third time Radeen and Hayden of Sailing Vessel Island Spirit. This time they'll dive deeper into their expert, well-practiced route through the stunning Bahamas. If you're looking for insider tips and detailed insights from seasoned sailors, you're in the right place. Get ready to learn how to navigate the Bahamas like a true pro. Without further delay, let's welcome Hayden and Radeen.

Radeen Cochran 0:43

Hi Tinsley.

Capn Tinsley 0:44

Hello.

Hayden Cochran 0:45

Tinsley. Hello everybody, Thank you.

Capn Tinsley 0:47

Well, glad to have you here and very excited to hear in more detail about the Bahamas and so grateful you've come. You've come well prepared and you've made it really easy for me, so I appreciate that.

Hayden Cochran 1:00

Oh, you're welcome. We love doing this and we love talking about charts, and maybe Radeen can tell you the difference between the Abacos and the Exumas.

Radeen Cochran 1:09

Okay.

Hayden Cochran 1:10

As a little intro.

Radeen Cochran 1:11

Well, the Abacos, in my opinion, are the easier place to start. It's closer to the States, the legs between islands are shorter and the total distance is less. So you can easily do the Abacos in six weeks or less and feel like you've really left the country and had an adventure. It's a lot farther to get to the Exumas and the legs are more challenging.

Capn Tinsley 1:33

Okay, All right yeah.

Hayden Cochran 1:36

The Abacos are easy really.

Capn Tinsley 1:38

Yeah, so, and then we were just talking offline that you guys are going to come back maybe on November 13th, if the date works out. Yeah, and talk about one of your expertise, radine, provisioning for three months in the Bahamas.

Radeen Cochran 1:53

I'd be happy to share what I've learned. We'd like to contribute to the local economy, but it's best to have your own provisioning on board, because it's not always easy to get the things that you want to have on board and some things are extremely expensive, like snack items. So I'd be happy to share my thoughts on provisioning and how we do it with as minimal shopping as possible once we're there. Yeah, we pretty much load up.

Hayden Cochran 2:20

Yeah, we load up in Miami and then we're good for about three months.

Capn Tinsley 2:24

Yeah, and my experience in the Bahamas is, if you're looking for 25 types of toothpaste, that's not the place for it is it If you? Got a special toothpaste, you better bring it.

Hayden Cochran 2:33

You go there for the beaches, the palm trees and the snorkeling. That's why you go to the Bahamas, Absolutely.

Capn Tinsley 2:39

All right, you want to start off with this one.

Hayden Cochran 2:41

Yeah, that's our first chart. The first discussion shows the difference between the Abacos and the Exumas Up at the top. Number one, straight east from, say, fort Pierce, florida, takes you out to the Abacos, which is the Sea of Abaco really small, we're a hometown and we'll look at all those adventures out there. Number two takes you down into the Exumas and you usually leave from Miami or, farther south, go through Bimini and through the Northwest Channel and then you end up down at the Exumas. The difference is Miami to the first Exuma Cay is 200 nautical miles east or a little bit southeast, as you can see on that number two arrow, but number one up top.

Hayden Cochran 3:22

Every trip is about a 40 mile day trip and you just day hop your way one, two, three days and you're in the Abacos and it's very, very easy. So the first time you go to the Bahamas you should definitely go to the Abacos. So we have 10 slides that's going to walk us into the Abacos so you can jump to the next one, next one, okay, so focusing just going to the Abacos. You would not move down to Miami because that's south of the Abacos already. So you're going to leave from. Like Lake Worth is very popular place to leave from. You're going to go straight over to West End. You're going to check into customs there. And then, number two, you're going to go to the center of the banks, called Great Sale Cay. And number three, you're going to make Green Turtle Cay. These are three individual day hops Very, very easy.

Radeen Cochran 4:12

And Green Turtle Cay is a great destination. There's two towns there. Yeah, that's restaurants, beaches it's lovely.

Hayden Cochran 4:19

Yeah, that's your destination. Let's go to the next slide and look at where you're going to check in at, because now you're going to the Gulf Stream and this the most memorable thing I have in 25 years of sailing on Island Spirit is the first time in 2011, when we came up on this Bahama West End Bank. As you can see, the deep water is white out there. You're coming off of the Gulf Stream, the sun is behind you because it's late in the afternoon, and this shallow bank comes up from the bottom and it's all white sand and what happens is the sun comes right through that crystal clear water reflects off of that sand and goes from indigo blue up to every shade of blue you can imagine, until it almost goes white in the turquoise. As you come into this entrance.

Hayden Cochran 5:08

It is the most spectacular thing to see anywhere in the Bahamas is that corner right there as you approach West End. So you've got to imagine this. It's the first time you're going to the Bahamas and you've made it across the Gulf Stream, which is scary for most people. We've crossed the Gulf Stream 20, 25 times and you come up on this bank and you just see this water man, you, how?

Radeen Cochran 5:31

about it. It's a real thrill. It honestly is.

Hayden Cochran 5:34

You know, you know you've made it to somewhere really remote and you're not even there yet. You're just at West End. So it's 40 feet across. So you go into the harbor here and you dock up and then you walk around the perimeter of the harbor and the customs houses on that little peninsula, out in the center there, which is customs right there, and you check in, you spend the night and the next day you get up and you carry on. So now go to the next slide.

Radeen Cochran 5:58

I just want to say it's a nice resort.

Hayden Cochran 6:00

Oh yeah.

Radeen Cochran 6:00

It's a beautiful facility with a nice restaurant and pretty beaches on the on the East side. So if you want to stay a couple of days, that's allowed too.

Hayden Cochran 6:07

It is. It's a whole other dilemma of you know where do you stop at and when do you stay in a place because, remember, you've come across the Gulf Stream on a front. The winds are normally from the East, blowing from the right side to the left of the screen. You've come from the West and you don't want to get stuck here. You want to carry on. So usually you don't. You stay here when you're coming back. This is your route back. You're going to go the same way back. You stay here coming back, and you enjoy the pool and the restaurant when you're outbound. You keep it going. You try to make a good weather window and get going.

Capn Tinsley 6:42

So the next day now this is day one- Well, I just wanted to also say that you gave some great information. It took me a few times to listen to it, to understand it, for it to finally sink in. Some people already know this, but it was very helpful when you were on here last time. It was the Florida to Caribbean route. When you came on it. You explained the importance of the weather to wait for and how it's better just to wait until you can go all the way through, when the wind was coming from this direction and then that direction. You explained it very well. I will include some links in the description after we're done here for people to hear that that was like the best explanation that finally made it through this head.

Hayden Cochran 7:28

If you back up one slide you can see what you were just talking about. You're going to cross the Gulf Stream, number one. So that's your big challenge. That scares most people. It's not that bad If you pick the right south wind. You wait till the wind goes south. Now you take the south wind into that West Bay and you don't want to stay there because the Southwind is going to go to Westwind and then it's going to go to Northwest wind and it's going to blow like crazy out of the north. So you have two more days of moving east and you want to get out of that open corner there and get across that bank and get up into that next corner where it says three. That's where you're trying to get to. That's your safety spot. So if you stay back at number one, you're going to be stuck there for seven to 10 days.

Hayden Cochran 8:10

So now go forward to West End again.

Radeen Cochran 8:13

Thanks for the reminder. There's West.

Navigating Hazards into the Abacos: Great Sail Cay

Hayden Cochran 8:15

End. Now, after West End, you come out of here, go to the next slide. Okay, now there's West End, down at the corner where it says Indian key. You come out, you run through the cut there over the reef and you go up around mangrove key, which is just a little island in the middle of nowhere. You're on the little bahama banks and you're running east into the wind. You're running, well, you're not into the wind, because you've come over on a front. The wind should be behind you and you're going to anchor at this Great Sale Cay. How about this place, Radeen?

Radeen Cochran 8:46

It's a big, long rock in the middle of nowhere.

Hayden Cochran 8:49

Oh my gosh.

Radeen Cochran 8:50

You can't go ashore. There's nothing. No way to beach a dinghy.

Hayden Cochran 8:53

No, it's really a hostile island. It's very edgy, the rocks are edgy, you can't even get a dog on. It's not the place to say this is my destination, you want to?

Capn Tinsley 9:04

get there.

Hayden Cochran 9:05

You're going to throw the anchor out. You're going to make dinner, sleep maybe, jump in and swim and next day you want to get out of there Again. Look at how you're laying. You're laying on a Western shore. You rode the West winds over. You're going to drop anchor on this side of Great Sale Cay with your bow facing into the sunset, into the wind. You're going to be on a lee shore. This is what happens. The other side of the island is not that great. So this is your only option is along this Western shore. So that's why you're sitting back in Florida like picking a good two-day weather window to make this run.

Hayden Cochran 9:41

If you can get anchor up here the second day and get moving, it's okay that it's blowing maybe 15, 20 knots out of the Northwest. Now you come out of here and I look at the next leg. This is this is now day three. Now you got it made. There's number one, back at great sale. You up anchor there at daybreak. You're getting out of here because again you got the West winds coming in. They're going to go northwest and then they're going to blow down this route from number two to number three. So it's usually you're going downwind across there and you look what you're going to get in between Crab Cay and the Spanish Cay Reef. You're going to get in between this protected area. Okay, this is the beginning of day three. It's going to be noon by the time you're at number three. And now you come down to the destination, Green Turtle Cay at number four. Now, look at this, Go to the next slide. That's another day trip. So this is three days of day tripping now. Now, how about this place? Right?

Radeen Cochran 10:38

here. Oh, this is terrific.

Hayden Cochran 10:39

Okay, describe this.

Radeen Cochran 10:40

Well, the approach seems narrow but it's well marked. There's plenty of room to make it up into the anchorage. All around that, at the head of the arrow, on all three sides around you, you see docks out into the water. So those are three different marinas Green Turtle Cay Club and Bluff House is on the right. Green Turtle Cay Club is one of our favorite places.

Radeen Cochran 11:01

They have music on the weekends. They have a nice restaurant with linen tablecloths and great food and a friendly staff. And at the Southern end, where the arrow points down to the Luard Island Yacht Club also is where Abaco Yacht Services is where you can buy Yamaha outboard motors.

Hayden Cochran 11:21

Yep, which we've done. We've ordered a Yamaha. They held it for us. We bought it there. We've come back there multiple years had it serviced.

Capn Tinsley 11:29

Doesn't need to do anything to a Yamaha, they run forever right, right, that's your closest place to buy a Yamaha 15 at greatly reduced prices $2500 bucks, right compared to the state you heard it here, right here on the Salty Podcast, right there Park and shopping and New Plymouth is at the bottom, which is the largest settlement in Ongre, Turtle Cay.

Radeen Cochran 11:52

And again there's restaurants and marinas and yacht services and one of the most famous places is a place called Miss B Blue.

Hayden Cochran 12:00

Bee, the Blue Bee Club no the.

Radeen Cochran 12:02

Blue Bee Bar.

Hayden Cochran 12:03

Yeah. Yeah, it's been there forever, and it's a fun place to go.

Radeen Cochran 12:06

Where's that?

Hayden Cochran 12:08

It's down in the bottom cove down there there's little. Right here, yeah, there's little pubs and bars, everywhere in the Abacos, but up top is Green Turtle Club and that is to die for and it's our favorite. We tend to go up there and then we rent a golf cart and you ride a golf cart around the island down to the bottom. Okay, or you get a ride with somebody.

Radeen Cochran 12:29

Or you can take your dinghy even.

Hayden Cochran 12:30

Oh yeah, well, you buy your new Yamaha 15 there. You have 10 hours of break-in, so they want you to run it at certain speeds, at certain RPMs for so many minutes, and so you race it up to the North and then you race it down to the bottom and you you race it back and forth and after you say you've done all this, you take it back, and they signed a warranty card, so it's easy to go dinghy from the top.

Capn Tinsley 12:53

You got to spend a little time there when you pick up your dingy motor, when you pick up your your what most people will do the first time they go to the Bahamas.

Hayden Cochran 13:00

This will be their destination.

Capn Tinsley 13:02

There are many, many people that don't go past here.

Hayden Cochran 13:06

They're like I've made it to the Bahamas, I've accomplished my goal, I'm done, it's okay, it's great. We have friends that would stay at the Leeward Yacht Club all winter long and it was a fabulous place and it's a good place to dock. So this can be your first destination that you don't have to go past.

Radeen Cochran 13:25

So this can be your first destination that you don't have to go past. So our friends who stay there, we're on an Island Packet 40 named Ten Ton.

Hayden Cochran 13:31

It's.

Radeen Cochran 13:31

Ken and Sarah Akins, and they started a tradition of having a St Patrick's Day parade on the island. So if you're, ever here in March. You should make an effort to be there on St Patrick's Day and join in the parade at the bottom.

Capn Tinsley 13:46

Let me ask you, is the weather kind of cool in the winter in these Northern islands?

Hayden Cochran 13:51

It is because you're still the latitude of Fort Pierce. So the cold fronts come down from the north every seven to ten days, bringing in the north wind, the northeast wind and the cold temperatures, and until that passes, every 7 to 10 days, depending upon the storms up, coming off of Chicago down to Philly. As those winds come to the north, then the trades aren't there, but then eventually the trades come back. So, yeah, the temperature will drop to 55, 60 degrees.

Capn Tinsley 14:22

Yeah.

Hayden Cochran 14:23

You know, maybe even 45, 50. I don't know 45, but it can get pretty cold.

Capn Tinsley 14:29

I was in Bimini in North Bimini in December. Now it's pretty chilly, yeah, but I didn't stay around long enough to see if it changed.

Hayden Cochran 14:39

You can make this area just be fabulous. Now comes the challenge for everybody. You're going to leave Green Turtle Cay and the next slide is the dreaded whale it's called see right in the center there it's called Whale Cay. Okay, everybody freaks out over this. This is scary.

Radeen Cochran 14:57

Well, it can be You're making fun of it.

Hayden Cochran 14:59

I'm making fun of it.

Radeen Cochran 15:02

There's a cruiser's net on the VHF radio I don't remember the channel, but it's every day and they give a weather forecast for the entire region and they will also talk about the predicted conditions in the whale key cut. You need to go around whale key out into the open ocean where the middle arrow is, and then you need to come back into the Sea of Abaco. So this is an open ocean cut. The winds can be high and the waves can be 10 feet 10 feet high.

Hayden Cochran 15:31

Easily. Yeah, the problem there's blue lines on that chart represent the waves coming in. So when you come down from Green Turtle Cay and turn the port, you're facing straight into the waves. So you go up and over and you crash over these waves, going through the cut at the waves. So you go up and over and you crash over these waves, going through the cut at the reef. The waves can be breaking, which you would never go out. And the real problem is you got to go out so far a little bit to stay safe off of whale key. You're running your motor. Obviously You're not going to sail this ever. You will have a sail up a double reef main, just for safety and stability. Then you're going to turn beam to the waves and now you're running along the front of Whale Cay with the waves you know, four, six, eight footers rolling in on your beam. So your boat is going from gunnel to gunnel, rolling side to side for this little passage until you can turn to starboard and cut down into the next cut.

Capn Tinsley 16:26

You see, okay, and what is this green arrow here with question marks?

Hayden Cochran 16:32

ever watches this. I'm going to call that the Blaine Parks channel. This is the channel that the ferry captains use. Okay, it has a name. I forget the name. Oh, don't rock passage. Right there, it's under your arrow. Don't all the ferries run through there because they come from down here. To the right is Marsh Harbor, the Sea of Abaco, and up to the left is Green Turtle Cay, where everybody wants to be. So the ferries run back and forth. They don't go around Whale Cay, they plow through this sandbank here. So it's kind of slotted out. Blaine Parks has taken 45 foot island package through there full speed under sail middle of the night. He is so good at what he does in delivery services. We've gone down through here eight, 10 times. We've never challenged that. Don't rock passage. I wish Really.

Capn Tinsley 17:20

If Blaine did it, why won't you do it?

Hayden Cochran 17:23

Blaine can take me through there, but I'm not doing it. I wish the Abacos would actually dredge that out and put a little wall there like a rock wall To the east to keep it open. But no, I'll just wait and go around. I'll wait up a Green Turtle Club Having a tipsy turtle and then I'll come around here when it clears out, right.

Capn Tinsley 17:41

Well, how far these arrows, the red arrows. How long are these arrows, the red arrows? How long are these, do you think?

Hayden Cochran 17:46

This would take you one hour to go around this. This is small, really small. Okay, that's not bad. Once you reach Green Turtle Cay, you don't have 10 miles to cover anymore. You can't go very far now. You're there. You're going to see in a minute. Now go to the next.

Radeen Cochran 18:01

Wait, wait, I have something to say In the lower left-hand corner of this chart is. Treasure Cay which is a long established resort and one of the prettiest beaches in the Bahamas, on the north side. So there are mooring balls in that harbor, there are also slips and it's a lovely place to go.

Hayden Cochran 18:19

That is paradise right down there, Treasure Cay. You can go in there and anchor and mooring that beach to the. That curve is spectacular.

Capn Tinsley 18:28

Well, how would you get in there?

Hayden Cochran 18:29

You come around from the bottom, so you go through the canal and then go down past Hayden's question mark and keep following that dotted line and just off the chart is where you would turn to get into the entrance.

Hayden Cochran 18:42

Where the question mark is is the beginning of the sea of Abaco. You're going to have a big sea now ahead of you, so if you go to the next slide, you'll see how this now leads into Marsh Harbor. Okay, here's the big picture. Now you see where whale key is up there at the top, very top. Yes.

Capn Tinsley 18:57

Yes.

Hayden Cochran 18:58

Right here. That's what you came out of Green Turtle key at the top up there, your Green Turtle key. You came down around, went out the whale, you zipped around the whale and now you're in what's called the Sea of Abaco. This is your destination. This is where you're trying to get to. You have protection of 360 degrees, which you don't have in the Exumas and the Caribbean. This is very rare and so it's very calm. It's great sailing and you have Marsh Harbor as one spot. You have Little Pete's Pub. You have Hope Town is a dream location. You got this whole thing. Sea of Abaco you have Manowar Cay, Guana Cay, where Nippers is there's. Everything is right here, based off of this Marsh Harbor base.

Capn Tinsley 19:38

Now are you anchoring in here or do you get a slip?

Hayden Cochran 19:40

We anchor everywhere. We don't take a dock anywhere. We we anchor everywhere. We don't take a dock anywhere. We never, anchor once we leave. No, no, we never dock, even for six months in the Caribbean. We don't dock, we just we sometimes take mooring balls.

Radeen Cochran 19:53

The inner harbor of Hopetown is a good place to take a mooring ball.

Hayden Cochran 19:55

Yeah, Hopetown, you'll need to take a mooring ball. Yeah, mooring balls in Hopetown, but you're anchoring everywhere here.

Capn Tinsley 20:00

We need to. We probably need to do a video someday about budgeting, because that probably saves a ton of money.

Hayden Cochran 20:05

We don't our expenses drop off a cliff when we get on the boat and get crew. Once we leave the dock, it's, it's hallelujah.

Capn Tinsley 20:13

No, more thousand dollar dock bill.

Navigating the Abacos

Hayden Cochran 20:17

So the thousand $2,000 dock bill is insane. We never dock, we don't dock. Yeah, okay, so go to the next screen now. You'll see now what happens in the Sea of Abaco. Here is no, it's first time to the Bahamas. It's going to be your paradise. You're going to come in here and every time a storm comes and it's going to be blowing 30, 40 knots we took our biggest high winds on anchor in here, right where that X is 55 knots, on anchor in here, right where that X is 55 knots on anchor and held.

Hayden Cochran 20:45

no problem, this is Marsh Harbor.

Capn Tinsley 20:48

This is where you go. Let me go back here and see Okay, so this is right here, that's right here, exactly.

Hayden Cochran 20:55

So you come into Marsh Harbor and you can sail right in here. This is spectacular. You can drop an anchor anywhere you want in here and the paradise place is at the top up there the jib room. That's been our happy spot for 10 years. We would always go and base in the jib room. The jib room is known for rib night on Saturday night and steak night on Wednesday night. And you anchor there and you go in and they serve you the biggest steak you've ever had. You cut it in half, you zip lock it for the next day, half of it and you eat half your steak there and then they have a dance party.

Radeen Cochran 21:29

They do. They were seriously damaged in Hurricane Dorian, so we haven't been back since then. So I heard they are rebuilt but I don't know if their schedule is the same, but they had a great tradition of catering to cruisers. So I hope they're continuing.

Hayden Cochran 21:45

Jib Room is a dream. It's a cruiser's mecca, because the owners recognize all of us are out here anchored out, and they just made their place so inviting and they even allow you to come in and have your own cocktail parties on their off nights. They usedB. They used to allow that. It's just a dream. It's perfect Bahamas gathering spot. You're in this anchoring so you have no cost on anchoring. You go across the town. Over there there's a massive grocery store to walk up to Everything you need Hardware store.

Capn Tinsley 22:20

What part of year would you say is the best time to go here? What time of year you want to?

Hayden Cochran 22:25

be in Florida for the winter front. You want to be in Florida for December and January. You shouldn't be coming over to the Bahamas until at least February. You should be over here. If you're going to be in the northern Bahamas Abaco's, you're going to be over here in February, March, April you can get a suntan. Then, oh yeah, May 1st you hit the Florida coast Very important. You're coming back May 1st. Well, that's what we've done.

Radeen Cochran 22:50

But plenty of violent packets, including an older couple named Dick and Carol Simmons who they would wait until May to come over, because by then it's less crowded. And so they would stay for June and July and just keep an eye on the weather. They're only two days from Florida. If something's brewing, then they would turn tail and head back to Florida.

Hayden Cochran 23:09

It's so easy to get back from the May.

Capn Tinsley 23:11

Sounds perfect to me.

Hayden Cochran 23:12

Yeah.

Capn Tinsley 23:13

Warm, warm, warm.

Hayden Cochran 23:15

Yeah, the mistake.

Radeen Cochran 23:17

No, not too hot.

Hayden Cochran 23:18

The mistake A lot of people make, I think, is they come down the coast, they race down the coast, they race down the coast and they leave Florida, you know, middle December, and they try to get over the Bahamas right away. For December, january, if they're going to the Abacos, they're going to freeze. You got these fronts coming through, unless you're. If you're going over to the Bahamas in December, you better be shooting for Georgetown and going south, and then you get all the way down to the Exumas that you're going to see next, and then you base down there until spring and then you come back up.

Radeen Cochran 23:52

So a lot of times people do the Exumas in the early part of the season and finish up in the Abacos, so Abaco in April.

Hayden Cochran 23:55

The first year we went over to the Abacos, looped that, learned that, and then, from then on, we went down to the Exumas and then from the Exumas we came up to the Abacos and came back to Florida. Okay, so your favorite month that you've been there is what?

Capn Tinsley 24:13

February, march, april, yep, and you still have a lot of cruisers there during that. Oh yeah.

Hayden Cochran 24:18

But the beauty is you stay back in Florida, you base between Fort Pierce and the Florida Keys and you take November, december, january, when these wicked fronts are coming across the country, the snowstorms, and you stick yourself down in Biscayne Bay. And you're in Biscayne Bay, sailing north and south and anchoring off the beaches and going in no name harbor. And Biscayne Bay is as good as the abacos, practically, and for sailing. Obviously the bahamas are better. But there's no reason to race away from florida to just freeze your tail off in the in the abacos right it just stay in florida.

Hayden Cochran 24:59

Enjoy the beautiful sailing of the Keys and and Biscayne Bay. You're down to Key West.

Capn Tinsley 25:04

And in the winter there's a lot of in the Keys. There's big east winds, yes, and you're sailing south.

Radeen Cochran 25:12

In.

Hayden Cochran 25:12

Biscayne Bay, but over in the Bahamas it's all east winds. Well, it's going to be all east. It's east all the time until a front comes.

Capn Tinsley 25:21

Right East all the time, yeah, all the time?

Hayden Cochran 25:24

Yeah, all the time. When the fronts come, it goes South, Southwest, West, Northwest, it clocks around, and then when it gets to North and Northeast, look out, you're going to get hit with 25, 35, 40 knot North winds. And where are you going to be for that? You sure don't want to Great Sale Cay out in or crossing the Gulf. You know what I mean.

Capn Tinsley 25:52

You want to be in a protected harbor like Biscayne Bay or no Name Harbor or somewhere like that, and then, when you've got your group of friends there that you've made over the years, that you see, yeah, oh sure, yeah.

Hayden Cochran 25:57

We always would spend Thanksgiving up in Stuart Florida. We love Stuart, that's one of our dream destinations and now and then we were down in the Keys. For five years we loved that for the winter and then, passing through Biscayne Bay, we realized we were missing the best of the whole East Coast. Number two on the East Coast is Biscayne Bay. Number one on the East Coast is Martha's Vineyard, nantucket Block Island.

Radeen Cochran 26:21

Center and.

Hayden Cochran 26:21

Newport, newport, that's where the America's Cup was.

Capn Tinsley 26:24

I had somebody come on and talk about Block Island.

Hayden Cochran 26:27

That's number one.

Capn Tinsley 26:30

So Robert Richardson says Gusto, I love Dick and Carolyn Gusto plans to be in the Marsh Harbor this up and coming.

Hayden Cochran 26:37

They are heroes, they are amazing.

Radeen Cochran 26:40

Well, they sold their boat. So this is the new owner of Gusto saying that he's going to be in Marsh Harbor?

Hayden Cochran 26:46

That's great. Good for you, Robert. Good for you, Robert.

Capn Tinsley 26:49

Fantastic. Oh, that's the new owner, okay, yeah, yes, yep, yep.

Hayden Cochran 26:54

Okay, colin did a refit, so let's go to the next slide. So we were in Marsh Harbor and now the question is out of Marsh Harbor. The next slide takes us around the Sea of Abacodo, the point which is called Elbow Cay, which is Hopetown, and it's the shape of your elbow and you see the little harbor in there, and that's where the Hopetown Lighthouse is, down in the, where I have the arrow pointing to the moorings, and well, the word lighthouse there is pointing to where the lighthouse is.

Capn Tinsley 27:21

Right here.

Hayden Cochran 27:22

Yeah, you come in this little skinny cut and it's filled with mooring balls. Now we have anchored in here in the past. Right, yeah, we did before the mooring balls went in and now it's all moored out, which is actually better because it's safer. But it's extremely tight and you usually have to wait outside for a mooring to open up. There's not much room to go around and drive around and look for a mooring. You usually have to coordinate with somebody that's giving up their mooring ball and you find them on the radio.

Radeen Cochran 27:51

I'm going to come in by dinghy.

Hayden Cochran 27:54

Wait for me or I'll go put a float on it. When you drop it, put this life jacket on, I'll take it off?

Capn Tinsley 28:02

Am I pointing to the place where the mooring balls are?

Hayden Cochran 28:08

Yeah.

Capn Tinsley 28:10

Okay, where the word?

Hayden Cochran 28:10

moorings points in there.

Capn Tinsley 28:12

Oh, I see it, moorings. Oh, no, right there, I see it, the green letters that you put there.

Hayden Cochran 28:17

The whole thing is moorings, okay, so you can anchor outside. You see the backside of the island. You can go to the left over there and anchor on the backside, because it'll always be filled in Hopetown. And then the lighthouse there. Tell me about the lighthouse there. Tell them about the lighthouse. It's really, really unique.

Radeen Cochran 28:34

If it's still the case. That lighthouse is one of the last working lighthouses in the world. It has a seventh order Fresnel lens in it and it is operated by kerosene, and the lamp only stays lit for two hours. So the lighthouse keeper has to go up the staircase to the top every two hours all night long to refill the kerosene and keep the light lit, because it is still used for navigation. And the way the lighthouse, the mechanism to the light, spins, is it rests in a bed of mercury so that there's no friction, and so it has to be hand wound to to wind it up, to make it spin.

Hayden Cochran 29:16

They lift the weights up the lighthouse.

Radeen Cochran 29:17

Right and as the weights drop. That's what makes it spin on its six second cycle.

Capn Tinsley 29:22

So would this be the last operating lighthouse that uses kerosene and all that it?

Hayden Cochran 29:27

might be. We were lucky enough to climb the lighthouse with the lighthouse keeper and watched him light it in 2011.

Capn Tinsley 29:36

Of course you did.

Hayden Cochran 29:37

I have a full photo essay of him and his lighting of the lamp, because he has to climb into the lens. So he gets into the lens and sits in there and lights it and a big fireball explodes. And then he tunes it down and up and down and gets it burning, just right, and then he comes out of the lens and then initiates the rotation and then, I think it's every two hours he has to go up to re-pull the weights. Yeah, it's really. It's kind of a unique, very unique, special lighthouse. It's the, it's the icon of the Abacos.

Capn Tinsley 30:11

So they have an assistant light keeper too. Huh, Because they can't do it every there's two houses so two families live on the property.

Hayden Cochran 30:21

Wow. It's a destination to go If you go to the Abacos. It's what you want to go to see. I'm there. It's one of the top things. You have to climb the Hopetown Lighthouse.

Capn Tinsley 30:31

It's really spectacular. That's my kind of. I love things like that yeah.

Hayden Cochran 30:36

Okay. So then the last thing is from Hopetown. If you go forward one more slide, just south of Hopetown is one of the hottest little places called Tahiti Beach, and you can see it's a little inlet. Talu Cut comes in here, you don't go in and out of here, and that beach is probably the most photographed beach in the Bahamas. Everybody goes in there. You can see I have a typo in the word burgers. Excuse me on that, but you take the dinghy across to Brugger's, you go over to Blubber's Corner and you get your cheeseburgers over there, okay, how about Tahiti Beach?

Radeen Cochran 31:09

Oh, Tahiti Beach is beautiful. It's a great place for throwing frisbee and beaching your dinghy and just sitting all day and having the waves lap at your toes. It's just beautiful.

Hayden Cochran 31:19

I got a picture of us with an umbrella in the beach, the dinghy pulled up under the umbrella and us laying on the inner tubes of the dinghy. Just a great place to spend the day. What else do we have from there, Ben? What's the next slide? I got to look at my notes here.

Capn Tinsley 31:39

Oh, we have a question. Oh, we have a question or a comment. Okay, that's the Island Girl.

Planning and Executing Exumas Navigation

Radeen Cochran 31:44

Island Girl. Yeah, they're going to be staging in Key West next month. Our plan is to hit the Exumas first Yep Trying to avoid the fronts to the north, trying to avoid the fronts to the north Wise plan, absolutely Very very smart. That is the way to do it.

Hayden Cochran 31:57

That's way better. That's what we started doing after our first year into the Abacos. We would go straight down the Exumas and then basin the Exumas below the fronts and then, as springtime comes, in April April we would usually move up to Abacos. We said April was for Abaco and we usually move up to Abaco. We said April was for Abaco and we'd move up there. And then May 1, we would come back to the coast and the month of May is the perfect month to run the entire East Coast. You're taking the spring north with you. It's fantastic. We've done it 20 times. We love it.

Radeen Cochran 32:28

Wow. So in the interest of time, I think we do need to go to the Exumas. Here we go.

Hayden Cochran 32:34

Eileen. Go to the next slide there. Let's see where we're going next. Excuse my cough. Okay, so this is the concluding slide of the Abacos. You get the whole picture here now. You see you're starting back in Lake Worth. You get across the Gulf Stream, you go across the Little Bahama Banks on day two, day three, you make Green Turtle Cay and then, as soon as you can, you go around the whale and once you get around the whale, you're in the Sea of Abaco and you're playing on Elbow Cay and Little Pete's Pub and Marsh Harbor and all the little keys that are out there to the east.

Radeen Cochran 33:09

Great Guana Cay. Great Guana Cay where Nippers is and a war key there's no place to go south of there.

Hayden Cochran 33:14

If you're coming up from the Exumas, you would actually come in here to the little cut where it says Great Abaco Island. You come in there from the south and that's how you get back into Hopetown. You're going to come right in. Yeah, you're going to come up to the top, where it says, right there, you're going to come right in there.

Hayden Cochran 33:35

There's multiple cuts there to the south of Hopetown and you're going to sail in there from the Exumas. That's your route in and then you're going to follow this route back. Okay, because from Green Turtle Cay we would leave at Green Turtle Cay after breakfast and we would go out to Great Sale Cay, drop an anchor and swim and sleep till midnight. And at midnight you're up, anchor, you go across that little Bahama Banks, head for the Gulf Stream and you hit the edge of the banks till midnight. And at midnight you're up, anchor, you go across that little Bahama banks, head for the Gulf stream and you hit the edge of the banks at daybreak and then you cross the Gulf stream into Fort Pierce by four o'clock. So you you can leave Green Turtle key and be back at Fort Pierce by four o'clock the next day. It's an easy way to come up because you're going downwind coming home and you've included the swim.

Hayden Cochran 34:14

Yes, exactly that was our final swim At your final swim, you drop anchor, have dinner, swim, prepare for your overnight and then you take off at midnight, and midnight till 4 pm you'll arrive at Fort Pierce.

Capn Tinsley 34:29

Yeah, we've done it 10 times, okay now I'm going to pull up the Abaco, the first Abaco slide.

Hayden Cochran 34:35

Yeah, yeah, exumas, yeah now we'll do the Exumas. I mean, yeah, yeah, the Exumas are a little bit more. How much time is it? We got that was 30 minutes. That was a little longer than I wanted it to be. I'll try to be faster on this, tinsley. Hey, this is the exumas run. Now, if you go back to this presenting first slide number two, yeah, when you look at the exuma runs, as opposed to abacos, abacos are so easy, the exumas you better be able to run overnight. And what prevents a lot of people? There's somebody coming in with a message oh, it's no bell on on sanang oh yeah.

Radeen Cochran 35:11

They met us in no Name Harbor last winter.

Hayden Cochran 35:15

Oh, fun, fun, fun Miami.

Radeen Cochran 35:17

Yes, the Miami contingency.

Hayden Cochran 35:18

They made us a beautiful dinner and gave us so much good information. Oh my great Miami team Love them.

Capn Tinsley 35:24

Do I need to have them on the podcast?

Hayden Cochran 35:26

Thank you, they know Miami.

Capn Tinsley 35:27

They're experts down there.

Hayden Cochran 35:29

They live there, they're photographers, yeah.

Capn Tinsley 35:34

Okay.

Hayden Cochran 35:35

Number two shoots down to the Exumas. The whole challenge here is look at the winds. The winds are coming from the east. You're sitting back in Miami waiting for the to go east.

Hayden Cochran 35:47

Okay, but you don't want to go across that Gulf Stream until the winds go south? Right. But when the winds go south, you know what's coming Southwest, west, northwest blowing like crazy, north, even crazier, and northeast it's blowing like wild and then it dies to the east again. So the question is how fast is the front coming and where can I get to in the timing of the front? And what a lot of people will do on this run, on number two run, because it goes right through Bimini. They think I'll just leave Miami and get to Bimini. I'll start there. My opinion is it's not worth just jetting over to Bimini to wait another week or two for the next weather window. You would be better off to stay back in week or two for the next weather window. You would be better off to stay back in Miami and wait for the next better weather window, right?

Radeen Cochran 36:40

Yes, there is one advantage, though by stopping in Bimini, you can clear in in the Bahamas, and you don't have to worry then about clearing in, because you're supposed to be cleared in before you go ashore anywhere.

Hayden Cochran 36:51

That's the problem. You leave Miami, your clear in points are only Bimini, the Berries, chub Cay and Nassau. So once you start going east fast and hard to get out east you're running out of places to check in. So that Exuma word out there that's 200 miles east of Miami, 200 miles. If you run overnight you can run 150 miles.

Capn Tinsley 37:16

So just to uh, north Bimini, bimini, nassau, chubb Cay.

Hayden Cochran 37:22

North Chubb Cay, chubb Cay, bimini, berries, chubb Cay and Nassau. Yep, okay, now you can get all the way down to Staniel Cay and check in down Staniel , and I think some people do that. We've never. We've checked in in Bimini. We've checked in in the Berries. We've checked in in Chubb. We've never checked in in Nassau.

Radeen Cochran 37:41

There is one more place on the northern end of the island of Andros.

Hayden Cochran 37:46

We've done that.

Radeen Cochran 37:46

Right where your arrow is, there is a place.

Hayden Cochran 37:49

We've cleared in there.

Radeen Cochran 37:51

It's not very convenient. Not recommended, I would never tell you to do it.

Capn Tinsley 37:54

So when you make this run, do you stop at Bimini just to check in?

Hayden Cochran 37:58

We'll go to the next slide. That's what we're going to look at.

Capn Tinsley 38:00

We're going to look at the three options of stopping.

Hayden Cochran 38:03

There's three options. Now here they are. You're starting back on the coast. You make the Gulfstream run. It's going to take you to Bimini, no matter what. And then, because you want to get around Bimini and get up on the banks, now your first option is A Bimini I can check in there and stop If your team is strong enough to run overnight. You're going to run overnight on the banks to B, which is your next closest option. And you're going to go to the Berries. Now the Berries are a little bit north, but you can come out of there and still get south. So that's the one we did last year and we liked it.

Hayden Cochran 38:41

You leave Miami. You're around the top of Bimini about 4 in the afternoon. Sun is getting low. You're getting out on the banks. You're making dinner. It's nice and calm. The sun sets behind you on the banks and we had a full moon that rise over the bow. As we're going east to Great Stirrup Cay, the Berries Spectacular night at sea. You arrive at the Berries.

Hayden Cochran 39:02

The problem for most people is you're arriving at these places at 2, 3 o'clock in the morning, so you're coming in under radar. You're trying not to hit anything. You're looking for a place to anchor. So you just drive up to the island, stay what? A quarter mile off the island and drop the anchor and sleep. It's 2 am in the morning and it's usually calm because you're running before the front. The big winds haven't hit yet. Yeah, you've planned well, right? So that's B. Now C is the most aggressive run because you come around the top of Bimini and you keep running for the Northwest Channel. Now, the Northwest Channel, you're going to hit around 2 am also and most people go oh no, I am not running between two reefs, it's one mile. It's one mile wide. It's big. There's supposed to be a light there, but welcome to the Bahamas man. The lighthouses blow away. We don't replace lighthouses when they blow away.

Hayden Cochran 39:58

You have your tracks right it might be a stick sticking out of the water, but this is your first time through here. Most people freak out and they'll drop an anchor in front of the Northwest channel on the sandbar which we have done successfully.

Hayden Cochran 40:12

We've done that. Not a very nice night of sleep, but you can drop an anchor and you rock and roll it. Just keep moving. My opinion just keep it moving. Get through the Northwest Channel and you drop into what's called D now the tongue of the ocean there, and you're going to get the Chubb Cay.

Capn Tinsley 40:27

Chubb Cay is another that's where we dropped anchor, right there.

Hayden Cochran 40:34

It was a little rolly all night, yeah, so now you go in the Chubb Cay. If you go to the next screen now, I'm going to show each ABC here. Oh nice, here we're coming into Bimini now and the game plan in Bimini is so many people come in here and they go north, up to the north part of the island and there's a lot of current up there and the current runs north and south and the docks are east and west. So you got to go up there, turn sideways across the current and pull into a dock and dock. Your other option, option B, is you go down to this little marina with a jetty Right here, yeah down B oh here.

Hayden Cochran 41:13

Down here. Okay, you go straight in through the jetty. You go in with a ton with floating docks. No current Pull in.

Capn Tinsley 41:21

Wow, that's what I did. I came up here, so this looks much better, everybody goes up there.

Hayden Cochran 41:26

I don't think it's the best way. We've done it. The first time, the first time we did it, our buddy boat crashed into another boat and took out their davits and their dinghy, punched their dinghy with a hole. I mean it was a total mess.

Capn Tinsley 41:40

And this is where I checked in up here. So I see there's another Port of Venture.

Hayden Cochran 41:45

How many?

Capn Tinsley 41:45

offices do they have there? They got two, they got one in the North Island, one in the South.

Hayden Cochran 41:49

Island so you can take a golf cart up to the A up where it says A and ride a ferry across there and go check it at the normal place. You don't want to go to North Bimini, in my opinion. By boat by your boat. You don't want to take your boat up into that current when there's an option for a marina on the South Bimini right there.

Capn Tinsley 42:10

Heck, yeah, I'm there, I'm there.

Radeen Cochran 42:13

I'm not sure. Sure it's still called Bimini Sands, but it used to be, and they have a golf cart and they'll take you to the airport where you can clear in customs.

Hayden Cochran 42:21

So this is Bimini. I would skip it and carry on. So go to the next option. The next option is B, going to the berries. So now here's what happens. You run overnight. You have this nice, beautiful night at sea on the 10 foot deep Bahama banks, when the sun is casting a shadow on your mask before it sets. You get a shadow on the sandy bottom. It's unbelievable. You see, it's just, it's fairyland, right, it's gorgeous. You come in here, the X is where you're going to drop anchor, and it's going to be 2am in the morning. So you can see, that's not hard to do. There's nothing in your way. You're not navigating a channel or anything. You're just running up and dropping the anchor before you run into the coastline. So it's easy. So you drop anchor, be two, three o'clock in the morning, sleep. Now again, it may not be an option if the front is strong, because look at the winds, the winds are west. You've brought west winds out here.

Hayden Cochran 43:16

they may go northwest but you're still they may go north at 20 30 knots. This is not going to be pretty at all if you have no you'd be a little exposed, you're in a leash and you got nothing you can do and you're not going to run in the channel at 2, 3 am in the morning so unless you have, unless you're real familiar with it, right?

Hayden Cochran 43:36

no, you would know. Rule number one you do not run channels in the bahamas at night. No, okay, northwest channel, that's fine. It's one mile wide, it's right, okay. So now in the morning, now you come around the corner, you go into great harbor and you dock up and you check in there.

Radeen Cochran 43:51

Fabulous that looks nice. It's an old-fashioned Bahamian marina, really friendly. They have potlucks some evenings and barbecues other evenings and you can walk to town and it's fun.

Hayden Cochran 44:03

This is a good place to make a destination. You can say I'm leaving, I'm going to the Bahamas, I'm going to the Berries, I'm not going anywhere else, and you can just circle the Berry Islands up here. There's a bunch of harbors around it, but if your goal is Georgetown and the Exumas, you don't want to get stuck here, you want to keep moving. So now look at the next option.

Radeen Cochran 44:22

So I just want to say that it looks like you'd be able to anchor where the red arrows are leading you to the marina, but it's not allowed. It's navigable, but you're not supposed to anchor in there, cats do, but monohulls don't Right there's no room.

Hayden Cochran 44:34

Yeah, all right. So now the next screen is going.

Capn Tinsley 44:38

Okay, let's pause one moment for tonight's sponsor. Yes, I actually have forgotten to do this every time. So tonight's sponsor is me. I'm Tinsley Myrick Remax of Orange Beach. In case you didn't know, I sell Gulffront condos in Orange Beach and Gulf Shores, alabama, as well as Perdido Cay, florida. So I've been selling real estate down here for 21 years and we're a team, we're the Myrick team, we're real good at it, and so if you're looking for some property down here on the Gulf, please give me a call, and there is the email and the phone number.

Hayden Cochran 45:16

Thank you for allowing me to do that. You're going to sell a condo to Radine if she can afford it. I don't know if she can.

Capn Tinsley 45:21

Let's do it.

Hayden Cochran 45:23

Okay, this is option B or C. Now you got berries excuse me, a bimini or you got straight to the berries, or you're brave and you make the run for this Northwest Channel because you're going to Chubb Cay or you're going to Nassau. You could run, continue to. We carried on the Nassau once and we laid a haul off of Nassau and waited till daybreak. So you're going to come through the reef at 2 am in the morning, go through at night.

Hayden Cochran 45:48

Okay, You're going to go through at night there's no other, I mean, or you're going to drop an anchor. That that's the next slide have you back.

Capn Tinsley 45:56

Oh, you want me to go back.

Hayden Cochran 45:58

Yeah, yeah, so you're coming through the reef at night or you anchor there at 2 am and go through in the morning. Okay, next slide. You get the chub key and now you're going to come into chub key by daybreak and you're going to be able to anchor there off of the marina of chub key.

Capn Tinsley 46:12

Yes, this this is what we did. This was after either Maria or one of the storms back then where this was all messed up.

Hayden Cochran 46:19

It is yeah, it was.

Capn Tinsley 46:21

And we came in here and this is where we anchored. It was a little rolly, but we got some sleep and that's important.

Hayden Cochran 46:30

Again, this is a check-in port of entry, so you drop anchor, you can dingy in and check in. They don't like that. They prefer you come in and take a dock. Their docking billing procedure is insane, it's it's not even.

Capn Tinsley 46:43

Why do they not like it?

Hayden Cochran 46:44

You could do a whole. You could do a whole podcast on the Marina and how they're doing reservations. It's really complicated it's not worth even talking about. But this is your other option. From here you would go to Nassau.

Radeen Cochran 46:57

And I would just like to say it is a lovely property, fabulous, beautiful. Marina has beautiful restaurants.

Capn Tinsley 47:03

Well, it's probably all new, right it is?

Hayden Cochran 47:05

Everything's new Five star right there.

Radeen Cochran 47:07

That's very, very sweet, beautiful gift shop. It is lovely.

Hayden Cochran 47:12

Yeah, okay, you're going to come out of here Now. You're going to have your first great sale because look at the next row, okay, we're going to now go down to the Island of new Providence. If you look at the whole picture here again, this is looking at the big picture there's the startup at that Northwest channel. You've come into the berries now, or you come into Chubb Cay, which is part of the berries, and we come into Chub Cay, which is part of the berries, right, and now you have a day trip down to the west end of New Providence, which is the island of Nassau. Now, notice, I'm not going over to the east side, where Nassau is, I'm stopping here in the west bay, and we've used this every time we've come in Because, look at your next trip, your next day trip, you've reached the Exuma Keys.

Hayden Cochran 47:54

Yeah, this is why you don't want to get stuck back there in Bimini or the Berries or Chub Cay. You want to try to push as hard as you can. I would like to just push straight through and go to West End, but you can't check in anywhere. So you'd have to go. You'd have to push straight through and go to Nassau and dock in Nassau and check in in Nassau, which is efficient. You can do that. It's.

Hayden Cochran 48:20

The whole problem is, where do you check in at? That's the problem. And you're running before a front because you still have 50 miles. That last arrow that says day trip, that's 50 miles, from West End to the first Exuma Cay is 50 miles and it's southeast. The front has come around. It's already been. If you've been lucky, it came around north and northeast winds where you're docked in Chubb Cay and the trade winds are back and the trades are starting to try to reestablish. You can make this next run coming down here. You know, double reef main and a strapped in, stay sail and motor into it, because you're going to be motoring into the wind.

Radeen Cochran 49:00

I would like to point out that on Hayden's birthday in 2012, February 10th, we had our friend Jeff Gaber aboard, who had an island packet named Lucille 420. He was crewing for us and we left to make it to Highborne Cay and after about two and a half hours we had to turn around and go back to West Bay. We weren't making any progress and I love the sail upwind.

Hayden Cochran 49:23

Believe it or not, we had double reef main in and a full jib out strapped it as the spreader was punching through the jib. It was hard on the wind. We had the autopilot BNG set to hold like a really tight wind angle and we were bashing our way east into this wind and I said this is ridiculous. We're not going to make it by dark. You don't want to be anchoring in the Exumas in dark. That's bad news. So we turned around and just sailed back into West Bay and said we're going to stay here till the wind dies down. We stayed there two days till it changed.

Capn Tinsley 49:54

Now was this unexpected.

Hayden Cochran 49:56

How did you get off.

Capn Tinsley 49:57

How did you get caught in that wind? The?

Hayden Cochran 50:00

front was faster than you expected and you thought you could beat it east. You thought you could beat it out east.

Capn Tinsley 50:09

It's not a perfect system.

Hayden Cochran 50:10

I understand All right so now we're getting out to the Exumas. We've made it 200 miles east.

Radeen Cochran 50:16

Now you're offshore at hibern key yeah, you're not offshore anywhere, you're still well she means off the coast right so I would just like to point out please notice that the blue water on this chart is shallow water. It's the bahama banks. The white water is incredibly deep. Yeah, so the body of water to the west side is called the tongue of the ocean.

Capn Tinsley 50:37

Yeah, that's weird looking when you're on that.

Hayden Cochran 50:40

It is thousands of feet deep, with Navy submarines practicing in there.

Radeen Cochran 50:44

Right, it's deep.

Hayden Cochran 50:46

It's deep.

Capn Tinsley 50:48

It's very different looking. You know you're in some really deep water.

Hayden Cochran 50:53

All right, go to the next slide and we'll look at the Exumas now. Now we're getting, we've reached paradise now.

Capn Tinsley 51:00

Oh, this is West Bend. Oh, this is West Bend. This is where you anchor off.

Hayden Cochran 51:04

I'm in between the reef and the anchor there. It's obvious on the charts, it doesn't need much discussion. There's nothing to go to shore for you, just sleep here and swim. Okay, next slide and swim, of course, yeah, okay, here we are. This is the. This is the final push. You've done bimini, you've done chub or berries, you've gone to west bay. Now you got one last push of 50 miles east and you go from west bay. You push down to the first. The first key is highborn key, the second one is norman's key and the third one is shroud key, which most people love the best. So we pushed last year from West Bay and went straight for Shroud Cay in one day. Now you do have those reefs up there Yellow Bank and White.

Capn Tinsley 51:45

Bank. Yeah, they're visible, aren't they? You can hit them.

Hayden Cochran 51:48

This is why you don't run at night. You can hit those reefs up there, so you run during the day, and this is a 50 mile leg right here. So now you're out at shroud key. You go to the next slide. Wait we gotta answer a question oh it's mark and dawn oh, the journey, oh yeah hi guys.

Radeen Cochran 52:05

They want to know what are the fees for the bahamas and how long are they good for. You would need to look it up to be sure it used to be three hundred dollars, three hundred dollars for six months I thought, thought it was three months. I'm not sure it's been changing.

Hayden Cochran 52:20

They stupidly had $150 for 35 foot and under $300 for 35 feet and over. I would walk into customs with $150 cash in my left pocket and $150 cash in my right pocket. I'd wait till the customs agent would call the number out or I would be aggressive and say here's my $150. I'm 35 feet. So, you never know what you're going to put. It's on their website it's either 300 or 600. Now I know they've been increasing the fees, but again we haven't been here. We've been in the Caribbean for the last.

Radeen Cochran 52:54

Well, we were in the Azumas last year.

Hayden Cochran 52:56

Last year we made this run right here, yeah.

Radeen Cochran 53:05

From here we made this run to the Baham, to the Caribbean doing all this Right.

Exploring the Exumas

Hayden Cochran 53:07

So last year for us it was $300. Yeah, so now these are the dream, dream dream islands right here. Shroud Cay has a water river that flows through a mangrove that ends up out in the ocean. That's to die for.

Hayden Cochran 53:18

You can take your dinghy through the ocean Wardrick Wells is the photograph that everybody takes of their boat in this little, skinny little river that goes through sandbanks. It is the icon of the Exumas is Wardrick Wells, cambridge Cay, compass Cay, samson Cay, staniel Cay. Staniel Cay is the dream. That's Pig Beach, where everybody loves to go.

Radeen Cochran 53:39

Let me just say that Wardrick Wells and Hall's Pond and Cambridge Cay are part of the Bahamas.

Capn Tinsley 53:45

National Park. Where do you put your sign? What sign Slave? Their signs, oh that's at Wardrick.

Hayden Cochran 53:53

Wells, wardrick Wells, they climb up the Boo Boo Hill, the top of Boo Boo Hill, Boo Boo Hill okay. It's pretty cool because you get cell phone coverage up there.

Capn Tinsley 54:04

So people climb up there with their cell phones and they'll bring like a little wooden sign of your boat.

Radeen Cochran 54:08

You should bring a sign that has your boat on it with the boat name painted on it.

Hayden Cochran 54:12

We put our stickers up. There is what we do, yeah.

Capn Tinsley 54:14

Okay, that's smart.

Hayden Cochran 54:18

You're sailing down behind this chain of islands on an east trade wind Fantastic, until the front comes. Which way does the front blow? Tinsley South. And then what? And then?

Capn Tinsley 54:32

southeast, southwest, southwest.

Hayden Cochran 54:34

And then west, and then west.

Capn Tinsley 54:36

And then southeast, southwest, southwest and then west.

Hayden Cochran 54:38

And then west, and then northwest. Just stop there. West and northwest, you're on these red arrows.

Capn Tinsley 54:44

Yeah.

Hayden Cochran 54:47

And you're anchored.

Hayden Cochran 54:47

Yeah, you're now on a lee shore. Yeah, this is the problem with the Exumas Every seven to 10 days you're going to have a front and you're going to be on a leash shore and you better have the big bad anchor and you better know how to set it and you better be able to have your boat swing in a 180 to 360 degree rotating turn as the wind clocks and not drag, because if you drag you'll be up on the beach clocks and not drag, because if you drag you'll be up on the beach.

Radeen Cochran 55:20

There's no you ever have to um help others around you, I'm gonna say we've never drug anybody off, no, we've never did you did

Capn Tinsley 55:25

you no, but did you ever have to either move away from somebody who maybe didn't know what, they're doing yes, okay or did you ever offer any suggestions?

Hayden Cochran 55:34

No, you let everybody do their own thing. If you go to the next slide here. The next slide is one of our favorite little places Staniel Cay. Everybody loves Staniel Cay. This is Staniel Cay Yacht Club. Now notice it has an airport Very, very key. It's the first place you can fly in or fly out of.

Radeen Cochran 55:50

After Nassau.

Hayden Cochran 55:51

After Nassau. So Staniel Cay Yacht Club is.

Radeen Cochran 55:56

It's not a yacht club, it's a restaurant.

Hayden Cochran 55:58

It's one of our happy places and I know Colin loves it here and I always bring him gear from Staniel Cay Yacht Club. This is his place he goes to, and all of us. If we were just going to go to one place in the Exumas, it'd be Wardrick Wells and it'd be Staniel Cay Yacht Club. It's not really about the pigs on the beach. The pigs are up there where the big X is in front of a big major spot. That's where you anchor. You take your boat straight into there, you anchor off the pigs. You don't really have to play with the pigs, but it is something to see.

Capn Tinsley 56:29

It's kind of tradition, isn't it?

Hayden Cochran 56:31

It's interesting, it's that photo moment. It Tradition, isn't it? It's interesting, it's that photo moment it is. And then you dingy from that X there, you dingy over to Staniel Cay Yacht Club. You also have the grotto here. That's where you swim in. With James Bond, thunderbolt movie was made, so you got the grotto to swim in. Ray Dean loves this. This place is just our happy place. We could just stay right here.

Radeen Cochran 56:53

And you can see there's anchoring symbols. There's other places to anchor as well, right here, yep.

Capn Tinsley 56:58

And to the north.

Hayden Cochran 57:00

It's a little boring balls in there and it's a lot of current Yep up there. There's a lot of current right there. Your best place is where that anchor is, right off Pig Beach and, because I didn't capture enough chart but to the north of this is a row of islands that go west. They go way out for about a mile to two miles west and that means when the front comes, yes, you're on the lee shore of Pig Beach. Fine, if I drag, I'll drag up on Pig, but I have 120 feet of chain out and 10 feet of water, whatever. It's ridiculous. You lay out so much chain in the Bahamas because you never know when the winds are going to come.

Radeen Cochran 57:39

And so those northern islands get your protection.

Hayden Cochran 57:42

You're going to take the south, the west and, as soon as it goes northwest, here at Pig Beach, you're protected by these islands to the north. That's why this is so popular. This is a great place. The next island, go to the next one.

Radeen Cochran 57:57

Now the next one south of here is called black point we spent. We were there last year for eight days with alex and amy on ip uh 350. I would never have thought we'd get stuck there for eight days, but it was so windy. There were days we didn't even get off the boat, even though we were close to town. And it's a great town, it's easy to walk and it's pretty. We stayed on the boat.

Hayden Cochran 58:18

We anchored right there and we were waiting and waiting for, because we were trying to run from here to the Turks and Caicos, to the Caribbean. So we waited here because the cut is right to the north of this island and that's where we wanted to go out to sea, right here. Yeah, there's a cut up there, yeah. So we bashed our way. When the wind finally went northeast, it came in overnight and it blew. We were on this lee shore and it blew 30, 35 knots. And then it went northwest and we're even worst case scenario. But you're just riding it out, the bow spread is going underwater and then coming up, and the bow spread goes underwater and coming up and you are just really working your anchor gear to death. And as soon as that wind went north, we were in the protected V and we were waiting for north and northeast because we wanted to get anchor up, go up there, turn the corner and hang a right. And as soon as we could hang a right, we had the.

Hayden Cochran 59:11

Yeah, we're right where the word black point is out to sea. Yeah, we went out to sea there and we had the best sail from there. I don't know.

Capn Tinsley 59:19

This is the one you were talking about.

Radeen Cochran 59:23

We went to Crooked Island.

Georgetown

Hayden Cochran 59:24

Yeah, crooked Island. We had the best overnight sail right past Georgetown. Just kept going Downwind, broad reaching haul speed. Phenomenal sail right there. But you have to wait. You have to wait for the front. You're taking the front out is what we were doing to go south. But this is the place everybody goes for laundry and Lorraine's bread. There's a restaurant there, mom makes homemade coconut bread that everybody dies for and there's a little yacht club there and pubs and restaurants and Key West.

Capn Tinsley 59:53

John has a comment.

Hayden Cochran 59:55

Hey, have you jumped through the grotto? No, no, no, no, no, no, john, I am not jumping off the hole on the top of the rock and jumping down into the grotto on somebody's head. No, I'm not jumping, did you?

Capn Tinsley 1:00:10

John, did you do it? I want to know. He probably did. That's my friend Key West John, you've heard me talk about him.

Hayden Cochran 1:00:16

I'm sure he's jumped it. He's a wild man.

Capn Tinsley 1:00:18

I don't know.

Hayden Cochran 1:00:28

Now the next screen gets us to Georgetown, and here we made it. So now you can see up at the top. There you see Staniel Cay. Up above A is Staniel Cay. That's where the pigs are. You have a cut here called Dotham Cut, which we went out right at Great Guana, which is Black Point South of there. You have Farmer's Cay Cut and then you have Rudder Cay Cut. So ABC.

Hayden Cochran 1:00:42

You have ABC cuts to go from the west to the east to get out to sea. Now you're going out to sea for a long, you know, sail down to Georgetown, what's called Stocking Island. You're trying to get down there because the rest of these islands you can go behind, but not very easily. So most people will stop up there at these cuts and pick one of these cuts to go out. And now you're making a run. You're making a run for georgetown. But look again, trade winds are east. Look at that red line. That's not a beam reach. That is upwind, that's upwind. So you're going to be, you're going to be sailing on. It's easy again. It's easy to come home from the bahamas. It's hard to get down. So now you're beating so double reef main and you just put it down.

Radeen Cochran 1:01:26

Yes, and let me just say you need to be careful going out all of these cuts right, because the waves and the wind are against you. So, you should pay attention to the tide, the current, so that you know when you don't have a situation of wind against the waves and get in rough conditions Right.

Hayden Cochran 1:01:44

The deep water in the right is ebbing and flooding and it floods up and it comes up through these cuts and flows onto these shallow banks.

Capn Tinsley 1:01:53

Okay.

Hayden Cochran 1:01:54

Then the banks fill up and then they drain back out through the cut. And what the worst case scenario is, the cut is flowing out against a 20 knot East wind. The wind wind against current is your worst enemy at sea.

Capn Tinsley 1:02:08

Like in the, like in in the. What am I trying to think of when, when you're coming across from Miami? Oh yeah, you don't want that. Any of the cuts, Any cut.

Hayden Cochran 1:02:20

You don't want wind against current yeah force, so you're sitting back here and you're trying to figure out. I want to go to Georgetown. When is the cut not raging? It's called raging the cuts. They go vertical.

Capn Tinsley 1:02:30

When is the cut not raging?

Hayden Cochran 1:02:35

When is the cut?

Capn Tinsley 1:02:35

not raging. When is the cut not raging? If the cut's not raging, yeah, so you can get on the sail net and go. When's the cut not raging? I'm going out. Where's Hayden and Ray Dean?

Hayden Cochran 1:02:42

Is rudder key raging and then. So when somebody goes out, they call back on the radio, say the cut's not raging, it's not high, it's flat, it's too nice and we're out, that's a great tip, y'all. And then you, and then you get out, and now you're out here and it might be three, four foot rollers and key west.

Capn Tinsley 1:02:59

John said he did do it, by the way of course he did 22 feet? No way he's crazy I wouldn't do it yeah he's a pilot and a sailor, so he's got a little bit of nutty in him yeah, the parachute in.

Hayden Cochran 1:03:11

Probably that would work oh my god all right, the next, the next slide. Now is the final destination Georgetown. Look at this. Here is what is known as Chicken Harbor Chicken.

Capn Tinsley 1:03:22

Harbor.

Hayden Cochran 1:03:23

Everybody loves this place, rightfully so.

Capn Tinsley 1:03:26

I need to make it there. This is your destination.

Hayden Cochran 1:03:29

Now you sail in. We've sailed from any of those cuts up there and we've sailed right to this chat and chill anchor and we've dropped anchor right off a chat and chill under sail. That's the way to arrive Georgetown. So we've sailed in there. We anchor as close to chat and chill as we can. Now, unfortunately, they're mooring this out. They got moorings everywhere, which is a big debate down there, but it's probably safer that people are dragging anchor. They're mooring it to protect the seabed and the seagrasses, is their argument.

Capn Tinsley 1:04:02

It's more of a money thing I've had some amateurs in there too, I'm sure.

Hayden Cochran 1:04:08

I guess, so Not as skilled.

Capn Tinsley 1:04:09

I should say, not as experienced.

Hayden Cochran 1:04:13

You have multiple anchoring spots across here Chattin' Chills, ground zero. The beauty of Georgetown is that notice you have an island to the east and an island to the west. It's one mile across the harbor. So again, when the front comes every seven to ten days, nobody has to up anchor and move, Nobody has to worry because the front's going to come around to the west and it's going to be blocked by the mainland over here. It's only going to be bad when it's when it's Northwest, blowing down this channel.

Radeen Cochran 1:04:41

And that's usually brief.

Hayden Cochran 1:04:42

That's brief. And then it goes North and now you're protected again. So everybody anchors to the East over here and nobody moves.

Capn Tinsley 1:04:49

Okay.

Hayden Cochran 1:04:50

Yeah, radina and I, we moved from Chattanooga over to the other X that I have there. We move over to town when we want to go shopping or something, if we have things to do.

Capn Tinsley 1:04:58

How far is this right here? One mile Piece of cake. You can row a dinghy. You don't dinghy, you don't.

Hayden Cochran 1:05:05

You dinghy across. Nobody moves in Georgetown. When people get here, they drop their anchor, and that's it. We move. We drop their anchor and that's it. We move, we move. We go to the other islands, the out islands. We come back here.

Radeen Cochran 1:05:18

Right, and we do anchor where that bottom X is. Yeah, we anchor down there Just because if you've got laundry and stuff, it is a long dinghy ride, a mile's pretty far you get wet coming back and forth across here because you're going down laundry again.

Hayden Cochran 1:05:29

Laundry is a big deal in there. Drop-off service is a big deal in there. Drop-off service, we drop it off, they wash it, they fold it. Nice, we love drop-off laundry service.

Radeen Cochran 1:05:37

So they have a floating dinghy dock there where you can get fresh water in your jugs, and they have a dinghy dock also at the fuel stop so you can fill your jug Now.

Capn Tinsley 1:05:47

how much is water?

Hayden Cochran 1:05:49

I got a water maker. Now I don't worry about it, but I think it was 50 cents a gallon when we were buying it.

Capn Tinsley 1:05:55

Okay, that's not bad.

Hayden Cochran 1:05:57

The beauty is they got, she said, a free dock. You bring the dinghy in, you got free water.

Capn Tinsley 1:06:03

I mean, it's 99 cents at Publix for a gallon of water. There you go. That's not bad.

Hayden Cochran 1:06:08

This is why people live here. They have free water, they have a pump out boat that was sporadic, that worked pretty well and you've got a grocery store and you've got a fuel station and you have a safe anchorage and you don't have to move and there's volleyball and beaches to go to A sail net, there's church on the beach, there's hikes. It's paradise. This is the destination of the Exumas.

Radeen Cochran 1:06:35

This and Stanley P Wardrick Wells and all these other places, and there's also a lot of kids' activities too. A lot of kids' boats come here for the winter.

Hayden Cochran 1:06:40

Island Girls. Yeah, I remember.

Capn Tinsley 1:06:41

Melanie was. You knew them, melanie. Melanie's father I can't remember his name Tom Neal. Oh, Tom Neal, yeah, yeah yeah, and this is where they used to come to. Right, yeah, yeah, and this is where they used to come to.

Hayden Cochran 1:06:53

Right, everybody goes here. There's 300 boats here in the wintertime.

Capn Tinsley 1:06:56

And she talked about seeing the same kids every year 300 boats will be here.

Hayden Cochran 1:07:01

It's a community. It's incredible.

Radeen Cochran 1:07:07

Most people don't leave here. Because why, again, there's a radio net every morning?

Hayden Cochran 1:07:09

It's everything you need.

Radeen Cochran 1:07:10

On Saturdays, the kids do the radio net, which is fun.

Hayden Cochran 1:07:15

Everybody can fix everything. If your water maker breaks, there's somebody in the harbor that knows how to tear it down and fix it and has the spare parts. I mean, it's a community. It's the best sailing community we've been to, probably anywhere.

Radeen Cochran 1:07:29

So Pete has another question on Island Girl. He's asking about recommended charts, aqua maps and also the best source for the Bahamas tide tables.

Hayden Cochran 1:07:37

Well, the charts we use are Navionics for all these places. Aqua maps we're just getting into. We know that that's more popular, but we're-.

Capn Tinsley 1:07:47

I've never heard of it.

Hayden Cochran 1:07:48

We're mainly Navionics. Aqua maps is really popular because on the East Coast they've integrated the Army Corps of Engineers survey data and so coming down the coast AquaMaps is really really clear and very popular. But I don't know if AquaMaps is global and does the Caribbean. I don't know. I just use Navionics. That's what I like.

Radeen Cochran 1:08:07

But I would like to say a good resource to have is what's called the Explorer chart books. They take the Bahamas and divide them into three different regions and they're about a 20 by 10 spiral bound book. The pages are heavy plastic.

Hayden Cochran 1:08:25

Yes, but on AquaMaps you can download and pay for the Explorer charts to be added in AquaMaps.

Hayden Cochran 1:08:30

Okay, I didn't know that the key on charting in the Bahamas. The first year we went down there, jeff Gaber saved me from running into a reef. The reef was not on my Garmin chart chips that I was running, which were called CMAP, NT chips 2011. And I'm maintaining a course. And Jeff, he had an iPad. He's a big Apple guy. He had an iPad running something else. He said are you going to maintain this course? I said, yeah, I'm good to go there. And then when I turned, he goes you're going to hit a reef. I'm like no way. And I matter of fact, I was running Navionics. He was running an IBM, an Apple product. I forget what it was called Precursor Aquamaps and it was better. It was Garmin's, I think. And he said you're going to hit a reef. And I looked at his charts. I looked at my navionics charts and there was no reef on my chart and there was a reef on his oh my god wreck.

Hayden Cochran 1:09:25

This is well known in the bahamas there was a knowledge there was a million dollar catamaran in 2010 or 2011 first year we went down there at 12 and it ran coming in from sea, from europe, and it was coming into georgetown and navionics had the magenta line across a reef and it the kids put it right up on the reef and lost the whole boat coming into georgetown nobody died, but the boat was a total and and when you look at Navionics. There's all kinds of X's now over that area of the reef.

Capn Tinsley 1:09:57

Is that on here by any chance?

Hayden Cochran 1:10:01

No Navionics now removed that magenta line. It's south of here when you come in from the south. And so I have screen captures of probably 20 screens that I started to capture errors on Navionics that I could hit a rock or hit a reef. That was not on my CMAP NT chips and was not on the paper charts. So back in the day, you know, 2011, 12, when we were going down there, you had to have the paper charts, you had to have the Explorer chart kits. That was rule one. You ran only those waypoints, you didn't deviate from those. So now that's all digitally incorporated into AquaMaps and Navionics. When you ask Navionics, do you guys put in the Explorer chart data? They go no, we have our own data. Well, we know how the rule is Navionics is not to be trusted in the Exumas and the Bahamas.

Hayden Cochran 1:10:57

You need to make sure you're using the Explorer chart books or the Explorer chart data inside of AquaMaps, which you have to buy it's cheaper than the paper and you put them into AquaMaps we have that, so you can buy the digital Explorer and then it puts it in your Navionics.

Hayden Cochran 1:11:16

No, Navionics does not like Explorer charts. Navionics is bad. Aquamap is good with the Explorer chart data added. Now Garmin pays Explorer for the chart data. So the Garmin chips, when you ask Garmin about their charts, you always ask them does it have the Explorer chart data, which are the original chart books? And Garmin will say, yes, our charts have that. So then you can kind of make sure they do by looking at a couple of reefs and things. But Navionics was well known. Don't trust it in the Exumas.

Hayden Cochran 1:11:54

And I've got screen captures of it. You do Many screen captures.

Capn Tinsley 1:11:58

So you trust your Gorman in the Bahamas, but you're checking the data.

Hayden Cochran 1:12:05

I use the Explorer chart books in the Bahamas.

Radeen Cochran 1:12:08

Okay, and I would like to put a plug for the actual books. The books are more than charts. They have great information for every community that you go to. They have the phone number for the government clinic and you can find out what hours they're open. So there's a lot to be said for those Kind of like the waterway guide. Yeah, it is they're smaller than that, but they're waterproof, so you can keep them open in the cockpit at all times.

Hayden Cochran 1:12:32

Yeah, the Explorer books are great this is great info, you guys. They're fantastic.

Capn Tinsley 1:12:38

You saved somebody's boat here.

Hayden Cochran 1:12:41

Well, everything is digital. Those kids that lost that brand new catamaran terrible, Terrible.

Radeen Cochran 1:12:46

So Key West John says great show with lots of great info. I've always thought flown there, rented boats. With your info, Now I'm more comfortable to take my Hunter 306 there no problem, oh good no problem, john I'll see you over there.

Hayden Cochran 1:13:00

That's not a problem at all. So I don't know if we have any more charts. I think that's just the last chart is just the summary. The summary screen is what the last page shows, I think oh, can I ask you one more question?

Capn Tinsley 1:13:12

So if you're in the States or offshore up here, what do you, what do you prefer? What do?

Radeen Cochran 1:13:20

you think is most accurate.

Hayden Cochran 1:13:22

What about Garmin? If I had Garmin, I would make that they're combined, now right. If I had Garmin, I would make Garmin number one.

Capn Tinsley 1:13:30

Okay, that's what I have.

Hayden Cochran 1:13:31

Yeah, garmin's number one now. Navionics was always pretty popular, but Garmin bought Navionics.

Capn Tinsley 1:13:38

Right.

Hayden Cochran 1:13:38

I don't know how they've changed it or what they've done.

Capn Tinsley 1:13:41

Well, I need to update mine, and. I've never figured out how to download it, so I just end up ordering another chip, which is more expensive, I think.

Radeen Cochran 1:13:48

Yeah right, we understand.

Capn Tinsley 1:13:55

We've done that too.

Hayden Cochran 1:13:55

Yeah, yeah, I just buy a new chip every year. Yeah, yeah, because the instructions are clear as mud, right exactly downloading it.

Capn Tinsley 1:14:00

Yeah, you can't do it, and I'm a technical person yeah, you obviously look what you're running right here you're doing live. This is so awesome, you guys.

Hayden Cochran 1:14:10

These are such great detail thank you, you Thank you very much Well so Hayden does plan to load these charts to his website. Yeah.

Radeen Cochran 1:14:19

S V Island spiritcom.

Hayden Cochran 1:14:20

Yep.

Radeen Cochran 1:14:21

And for everybody to review again.

Hayden Cochran 1:14:23

Yeah, I'm going to put them up on the website, so put the summary back up there All right, let me put that up there.

Capn Tinsley 1:14:29

Um, you, you guys can be found at at. You guys can be found on most social media. I'm going to put your website on here. Oh, it's right there in front of me.

Hayden Cochran 1:14:40

Yeah, everything is under svispiritscom. Everything links up.

Capn Tinsley 1:14:44

From there, you can find us all there, okay, so they can go there and get links to all your social media too.

Hayden Cochran 1:14:50

Everything's tied to that. Yep. Okay, so I know.

Capn Tinsley 1:14:53

Everything except for YouTube Is at SV Island Spirit and YouTube's got a couple extra letters in it.

Hayden Cochran 1:14:58

Yeah right.

Capn Tinsley 1:15:00

And then here's the website. And just for the record, everybody, these folks right here, started the Facebook. Well, first you started the Island Packet Owners Association webpage. That was like pre Facebook and all that.

Hayden Cochran 1:15:15

Back in the 90s.

Capn Tinsley 1:15:17

There's tons of stuff on there about different projects people have done. They upload pictures. And then you did the facebook page right and this is not the official island packet page.

Hayden Cochran 1:15:26

This is for the owners the owners yeah, yeah, we have the.

Capn Tinsley 1:15:31

This is like the best owner Facebook page out there because there's so much good information.

Hayden Cochran 1:15:36

Yeah, we have 3,000 people in the website ipyoacom. That's where 20,000 pictures of Island Packet systems are archived, and then the Facebook group is private to just owners. You have to have a hall ID to get in there and then we approve you with your hall ID and we're 1700 members in the Facebook group that are just helping each other all the time. It's fantastic.

Radeen Cochran 1:16:04

But the website is open to the public.

Hayden Cochran 1:16:06

So anybody?

Radeen Cochran 1:16:07

can access the information that's shared.

Hayden Cochran 1:16:09

Yeah, the website's public. You can see all the 20,000 pictures there just by clicking through them. It's no big deal.

Capn Tinsley 1:16:17

And also your little plug, for you guys are brokers.

Hayden Cochran 1:16:23

Oh yeah, we're with CJ Yacht Sales down in Palmetto, florida, when Whitaker's Yacht Sales. We worked with Whitaker Yacht Sales for 10 years and we sell maybe six island packets a year and help owners buy and sell. And our lead broker there, clint Jordan, broke off when Whitaker retired and started a new company called CJ Yacht Sales, so the team moved over there and we're listing boats there. Mainly we work as buyers brokers. You want to find an island packet? We'd like to help you evaluate the market and recommend what you should look into to meet your cruising goals.

Radeen Cochran 1:16:58

But CJ Yacht Sales does all models of boats but we specialized it in an island packet.

Capn Tinsley 1:17:05

Yeah, you guys want to have questions about a. There's a lot of people watching, by the way.

Radeen Cochran 1:17:10

Oh, wonderful.

Capn Tinsley 1:17:12

I was really thinking. I was like we should have more questions. Everybody's probably taking notes or something, so busy writing. Yeah, if anybody has any questions about about Island Packets, or really you know about you to know about a lot of different types of boats, but especially Island Packet, and if you want to know about the different models, which the good, the bad about each one, these two right here, yeah.

Hayden Cochran 1:17:36

Thank you, thank you, we own the. We own the 27 footer for 10 years, 1991 to 2001. And now we've owned this 35 footer since 2001. So 24 years so it's so updated.

Capn Tinsley 1:17:51

Thirty five, you got everything.

Hayden Cochran 1:17:53

Thirty five years of packet ownership, so 35 years of Ion Packet ownership. So we've torn this boat apart four times.

Capn Tinsley 1:18:03

And we could do another video just on all your upgrades, just on systems. Yeah, you just talked about your water maker and we know you have the star link and just about everything solar power and.

Hayden Cochran 1:18:18

Yep, we're energy surplus. Yes, we are.

Capn Tinsley 1:18:20

Okay. Well, we've decided before we came on air that you're going to come on here regularly. I'm trying to pin you down right.

Hayden Cochran 1:18:31

We don't want to bore people, but we do love talking about this stuff.

Capn Tinsley 1:18:34

Oh no, no, there's people, just like you and me that just get the big eyes and just talking about sailing, you know, by the way the only way you can get one of these is you have to find this in a harbor.

Hayden Cochran 1:18:44

These are rare, very, very rare collector's items.

Capn Tinsley 1:18:47

Well, so you have to find them on their boat. You can follow them at. Sb Island Spirit on Facebook. I think that's where you post the most right.

Radeen Cochran 1:18:55

Yeah.

Bahamas Provisioning Challenges

Capn Tinsley 1:18:56

Okay, all right guys. Well, I'm going to hold you to November 13th, okay With?

Hayden Cochran 1:19:02

a tiny question mark.

Capn Tinsley 1:19:03

Hopefully you'll come back and we'll talk about provisioning For the Bahamas.

Radeen Cochran 1:19:08

Totally different than provisioning for the Caribbean. Totally different.

Hayden Cochran 1:19:12

Caribbean's easy.

Radeen Cochran 1:19:13

Yeah, caribbean's easy, there's great groceries Bahamas is hard, bahamas is hard. Oh, that might be two videos, okay, no, no, caribbean's easy yeah there's nothing to talk about about provisioning in the Caribbean, because it's so easy.

Hayden Cochran 1:19:24

Yeah, go to a French island and get everything you want.

Capn Tinsley 1:19:26

Right, okay, a lot easier in the Caribbean. Bahamas is a little limited Bahamas is tough A A little challenging. Okay, All right guys. Well, as we like to say, what do we say when we're ending a salty abandon video? Tinsley, we're out, Salty abandon out.