Understanding Your Boat’s Limitations

Unless you’re one of the few who owns an ocean-going yacht with trans-oceanic capabilities, your boat has limitations. Most of us spend our time offshore in much smaller craft, and everyone has a personal comfort level when it comes to how far they’re willing to go in their own boat. Some captains push their boats and themselves to the absolute limit in terms of how far they’re willing to venture from home and shore. A friend of mine once took his young family, bought a large sailboat, and sailed off from Southern California for Fiji. That’s a haul, with very few places to find assistance along the way!  Others remain much more timid, and probably never come close to realizing the full potential of their boats regarding where they might roam. Most of us likely fall somewhere in between those two extremes.

We all dream about taking our boats well over the horizon, though, exploring unfamiliar waters we’ve never seen before. Modern air travel has made it super easy to fly just about anywhere in the world, putting once remote and exotic fishing ground within our reach, and that’s a great thing. But if you’re anything like me, fishing is twice as fun and rewarding when I catch fish on my own boat.

Epic Boat Journeys: Exploring the Unknown

I live in South Florida, and from here, the Bahamas beckon to those who would explore foreign waters on their own. Much of the Bahamas are exceptionally easy to get to by boat from Florida (on most days anyway), with Bimini and West End, Grand Bahama being the two closest ports of entry. I vividly recall my first boat trip to Bimini from Miami, aboard my Dad’s 22-foot boat when I was about eight years old. What is now a routine trip for lunch for many these days, seemed like a trek to the wilds of Africa back then. I can still remember the excitement we all felt when the radio tower on South Bimini finally came into view, and we knew we would survive.

When I got my own boat, I began exploring the Abacos, as many others do. Lots of folks settle into the routine of cruising the Abacos because it’s easy to get to, both by boat and airplane, and it’s incredibly beautiful. But while we loved every trip to that part of the world, I was always poring over charts of the Bahamian islands further south, intrigued by accounts written by others who had been there and extolled their virtues: Andros, the Exumas, Eleuthera, Cat Island, Long Island, and so on. Eventually, we pushed further into the islands, visiting all the aforementioned islands, and discovered amazing new worlds, different cultures, different geography, even different water colors. We also appreciated the fact that far fewer people went there, so crowds were few and far between. (Bahamas Boating Regulations for readers who may be planning their own boating trips to the Bahamas.)

The Call of the Islands: Bahamas Bound

Each trip we ventured a little farther south, discovering awesome new people and places, and getting the satisfaction of making the journey on our own. But we were traveling in center consoles and always stayed in marinas and hotels or houses. I heard other people talk about the experience of skipping the marina life and anchoring in remote areas, away from any city lights and usually any other boats, where you were truly on your own. This appealed to us, so we bought a 37-foot Bertram in 2003 with the intent of making such trips and staying aboard.

Memories of My First Bahamian Voyage

In 2005 I found myself temporarily between jobs, so I hastily planned an extended Bahamas cruise to cover much more territory than we had ever seen and going to a lot of new places. The plan was to start at the top, Walkers Cay, the northernmost inhabited island in the Bahamas and head south, possibly to Crooked Island. I also had a 22-foot Pathfinder at the time, and I had a towing bit installed in the bow so we could tow it, enabling us to have a smaller boat to explore in once we got where we were going. The plan was for my son, Ben, to drive the Pathfinder alongside the Bertram when it was calm, and we’d tow the boat in rougher conditions.

Venturing Beyond the Abacos

The first week of May, my wife Poppy, Ben, and Ben’s friend John Greco and I set off from our home in the Florida Keys and headed for West End, where we cleared Bahamian Customs and Immigration. From there we pushed on toward Walkers, anchoring in Wells Bay on the north end of the Grand Cays. Walkers had been destroyed the year before by back-to-back hurricanes, Frances and Jeanne, and was closed, but Grand Cay was open for business. Our first night, we enjoyed a great dinner at Rosie’s Place on Little Grand, a fitting start to any Bahamian adventure. Ironically, the only other boat in Wells Bay that night was another Bertram, a 46 manned by a ragtag bunch of surfers there to surf Matanilla Reef, and festooned top to bottom with surfboards!

The next day, we cruised down to Spanish Cay, about 50 nautical miles to the southeast. Spanish had suffered considerable damage from the two hurricanes as well but was open. Some guys were cleaning fish that afternoon, and Ben and Greco had great fun trying to catch the large bull sharks that swam back and forth beneath the docks awaiting the next fish carcass tossed their way. They never landed one, but it was pretty exciting for a few seconds each time one bit!

Planning an Extended Bahamas Cruise

Green Turtle Cay came next, then Elbow Cay and Hope Town, both familiar places we’d visited numerous times in the past. Family and friends flew in to meet us and enjoy the Abacos, and we spent several days in this spectacular part of the world before pushing on toward a somewhat more ambitious leg of the trip. We set course to the southeast for Harbour Island, on the northeast corner of Eleuthera. It’s about 65 miles in open ocean, and facing rough seas, we decided to tow the Pathfinder for the first time. We cleared Tilloo Cut south of Elbow and headed southeast toward Wide Opening in the Devil’s Backbone reef, making about eight knots into the steady chop. It took all day, but we pulled into Harbour Island Marina late that afternoon safe and sound.

Fishing Adventures in Eleuthera

A new set of friends flew in to meet us and we did our first real fishing while there. The reefs on the northern side of Eleuthera and Spanish Wells can offer some spectacular yellowfin tuna fishing, although the sharks can be bad at times. Most people fish for them using live bait, and after netting a load of pilchards on the Pathfinder, we transferred the bait to the Bertram and headed out to a reef area known as Dutch Bars. Other boats had been fishing the area and reports indicated that the tuna had all been small.

Given that news, we went for light tackle, 20-pound spinning gear. The tunas came right up when we began chumming with the pilchards and sure enough, the fish were on the small side. The first fish we caught was a yellowfin of about eight pounds, and then a blackfin weighing about half that ate a bait. But when we threw out the third bait, a boil the size of a small car erupted almost immediately as a large tuna engulfed the bait and headed down. Poppy had the fish on, and we all knew the chances of landing it were slim. Within a minute or so, she was almost spooled.

But then an odd thing happened: The tuna, which had sounded straight down, came to the surface. We watched the line angle change as the fish rose and Poppy began to regain some line. Twice, the fish took all the line off the reel to the point where only the knot remained on the spool, and twice, Poppy regained line foot by foot. After awhile, I saw the fish break the surface far behind the boat and I knew we had a chance to catch it. We chased the fish in forward gear until we had gained a lot of line back, then I spun the boat and backed down hard into the rough seas (of course the fish swam up-sea!), drenching the crew in the cockpit. But soon, we were within 30 or 40 feet of the fish and the endgame was in sight. At long last, Ben and Scott Salyers sank gaffs into the fish, and it was in the cockpit. The fight lasted about an hour and 15 minutes. We also trolled the Shallow Ground reef on the northeast corner the next day, catching and releasing a white marlin. (Harbour Island Travel Guide for readers to explore more about this iconic Bahamian destination.)

Discovering Remote and Beautiful Cat Island

From Harbour Island, we traveled through the Devil’s Backbone and down the west side of Eleuthera, passing through Current Cut. We made our way south to Davis Harbor Marina on the southwest coast of Eleuthera, an old spot once famous when it was part of the Cotton Bay Club, a wealthy enclave on Eleuthera’s east coast. All of that had fallen into a state of disrepair over the years, but it was still a cool place to see, and I ran into Bill Caldwell, an old college fraternity brother of mine while there. Small world.

One of my favorite places came next, the Hawks Nest Resort on Cat Island. This remote outpost offers some of the most beautiful scenery in all the Bahamas combined with truly exceptional fishing along its southern shore. We caught the first blue marlin of the trip along with more yellowfin off Columbus Point, the southeastern tip of Cat. We also waded for bonefish with fly rods along Hawks Nest creek, finding lots of cooperative fish. As great as the trip had been until this point, we had only anchored out once, a situation we hoped to change.

We left Cat and headed south to uninhabited Conception Island, an amazingly beautiful island where turtles spawn seasonally in a large, shallow creek running through the center of the island. We explored the creek far into the interior in the Pathfinder and anchored on the beautiful northern shoreline, an anchorage that has been well known since the days of Columbus. The famed explorer reportedly first landed in the New World in this area, about 30 miles to the east on the island of San Salvador. Historians differ on exactly where the landing took place, but it was somewhere close by in this amazing part of the world.

A Different Place

Of all the places I had yet to visit in the Bahamas, Rum Cay intrigued me most. Friends who had visited the island as early as the late 1970s described a place that seemed somehow suspended in time, cut off from the outside world. Back then no marina existed so you had to anchor out, but by the time we arrived, Floridian Bobby Little, whose family owned a large property on the island, had single-handedly carved a marina out of the rock at Sumner Point, on the southeast corner. This marina had quickly become a Mecca for fishermen due to its proximity to deep water.

Basically, you pulled out of the marina, made a left turn to the south, and you could put your outriggers out and start trolling. The finger of reef jutting to the southeast from the island dropped off into deep water and the blue marlin fishing along that reef could be outstanding. The same applies to a similar point off the northeast corner. We caught blues off both points, and on another trip, we caught one off the northwest point of Rum as well. A lot of people will tell you that Rum Cay offers some of the best blue marlin fishing found anywhere in the Bahamas, and I agree with them. It’s also a uniquely beautiful place, with only about 60 full-time inhabitants, and a fascinating history. Read the book, “Deep Water Blues” by Fred Waitzkin to learn more about it. Sadly, Sumner Point Marina is now closed but hopefully it will reopen someday.

Going Remote

From Rum, we decided to push to the furthermost southern part of our trip. We had planned to visit Crooked Island, but no marina existed on Crooked back then, so we opted to anchor out at Samana Cay slightly north of Crooked instead. Samana is a remote place, only visited by seasonal crawfishermen, but it has a beautiful anchorage on its southern shore inside Propeller Cay. Miles from any civilization, the night sky was spectacular.

After out first night, we trolled the reef along Samana’s northeast coast and encountered the largest school of yellowfin tuna I’ve ever seen. The fish weren’t large but there were thousands of them, and it took no time to fill our coolers. After that, we spent time casting to them on light bait-casting gear, catching and releasing dozens. What a spectacular sight. We returned to Rum and prepared to head home the next day, with a few more stops along the way.

We headed west to Long Island and stopped in Stella Maris, another favorite spot. The small marina lies on the west side of the island, and the Stella Maris Hotel sits atop a bluff overlooking the ocean to the east. Run by the same three German families since the 1960s, it’s an amazing spot where we caught yet more tuna, another blue marlin, and quite a few bonefish, with local guide, Docky Smith.

Work beckoned (and cash supplies were dwindling), so we headed home, with one more stop in Staniel Cay, Exuma, and then Nassau. From there, we set off for home, making the long ride to Islamorada from Hurricane Hole Marina. Ben and his buddy J.R. Harrison drove the Pathfinder the whole way. The trip lasted about two-and-a-half months and from north to south, we covered over 400 miles. It was amazing experience and I’d do it all again in a second. But there are other waters we still need to explore.