We woke up at 4:45 am to get ready for our agreed upon departure with our buddy boats. Owen said he doesn’t recall me ever jumping out of bed so fast when the alarm buzzed. That’s because it’s never gone off before on a day I was going to the Bahamas!

Owen made some coffee for himself, and we had a pre-dawn prayer and chat with our buddy boats before picking out way out of Angelfish Creek. We were third in line behind Hallelujah and Silver Linings, and ahead of Thistle. I stood on the front of the boat watching for crab pots while Owen kept an eye on our depth finder. It gets skinny in that channel, and we were weighed down by a very full fuel tank and an embarrassing amount of Owen’s Diet Dr. Pepper.

The sun came up as we made our way toward the Gulf Stream. We watched the water depth go from 5 feet in the channel to over 400 feet (where our old depth finder gave up) to 1857 feet (where our new depth finder decided it just didn’t matter anymore) to a chart reading of 2832 feet, where I stopped watching. Can you imagine? Our little boat bobbing along above all that water!

The Gulf Stream nudged us along as the water turned a deep cobalt blue. In international waters, we flew our American flag rather than our regular Texas A&M banner.

In the distance, we saw what looked like an island but was really a cruise ship. We could see it ten miles away! It was in our sight for an hour or more before we approached and crossed in its wake. It was the Celebrity Millennium on its way to somewhere in the Bahamas. We took pictures of each other in front of it. Our boats looked tiny next to it! We ended up seeing a couple other cruise and cargo ships on radar but did not get as close to them as we did to this. We also encountered a few other boats and even a jet ski way farther out than it should have been!

We took turns taking a short snooze along the way. As we got closer to our destination, the waves picked up and it was a little less pleasant of a ride. The water turned to a beautiful turquoise as we got to the channel into our destination. We could see the bottom as we put up our yellow quarantine flag and headed into our marina. JR, the dockhand, expertly docked three of our boats while our other buddy boat went elsewhere.

We were hooking up our electricity when we saw a bull shark weaving its way between the boats. Then we saw five rays with spotted backs swim by. Owen learned that a group of rays is called a “fever.”

When we arrived, Owen left the boat to go to immigration and customs to get us all checked in. It went super-fast, and we were able to take down our quarantine flag and put up the Bahamas courtesy flag that we will fly until we leave.

Owen and I took a walk around town and then had dinner with our buddy boats. It was nice to put faces to names.

We were grateful for a safe crossing!