It’s Thursday morning and yes, indeed, as planned, we are heading out today for an overnight run to Chub Cay in the Bahamas. We plan on leaving mid day, after stopping for fuel and water, to cross the Gulf Stream and then on across the Bahama Banks. Brenda is a bit nervous about being out overnight but the weather is expected to be very mild with hardly any wind at all. Under power, we will push along over smooth water for nearly 20 hours to get there.
As we don’t want to arrive in Chub in the dark, we can’t really leave until mid day to early afternoon. At 6-7kts boat speed and the 150 mile distance, we can’t leave too soon lest we get there before daybreak. However, if we go too fast, we can always slow down as we get closer to ensure a daylight arrival. You really don’t want enter a harbor in the Bahamas in the dark, as there aren’t many markers for channels, you have to be able to “read” the water.
Interestingly, the best way to tell the water depth is to observe the water color with the darker blue meaning deeper water. This photo gives a good example of what this looks like. Note the deep blue water where the boats are moored. That’s pretty deep and the white area, very shallow, perhaps less than two feet deep. 
Pandora “draws” just under 6′ so to stray into the white areas would mean a sudden stop.
This morning Brenda and I went for a walk before it got hot. For those of you in New England, it’s plenty hot here, in the upper 80s I’d guess by mid day. We took a ride to shore in our dink for a coffee run.
Along the way, in the middle of downtown Ft. Lauderdale, we spied a whole neighborhood of iguanas lounging around waiting for something tasty to present itself. They look pretty fierce and the biggest ones are up to 4′ long. It’s a good thing they don’t get bigger than that as I can only imagine what sort of mischief they would get into if they were 100lbs or more. They do look fierce though and I don’t think that they would take kindly to anyone disturbing their vigil. It seems that the largest ones had the best real estate. I guess that’s what life is all about.
It looks like he, and it’s definitely a “he”, is behind bars. Not so. It’s just that he happens to be on the other side of the fence. What’s more remarkable is that he spends his time right across the street from a major shopping mall. Where else in American can you see a Macy’s and Iguanas at the same time?
Some of the smaller ones were spending their time up in a tree. This guy was one of perhaps a dozen hanging out in a single tree over the water. Looks pretty comfy, doesn’t he?
Well, signing off for now. Next post, Chub Cay. Wish us luck.